"Is this the right way?" Elias didn't think he could walk much further.

"Got ... to be." Robbie looked as bad as Elias felt.

Kia didn't know, she only hoped so. Memories of stories about travellers wandering in circles filled Elias's mind. Without a horizon to fix upon you could spiral around in an area not much larger than a football field and think all the while that you were keeping to one bearing.

Elias swung one foot in front of the other, trembling with weakness, terror nipping at his heels. Velvet silence had replaced James's laughter but the sound still echoed in his ears.

Be strong, this from Kia.

A moment later a circle of light opened above them, the night sky bright with the moon. They staggered on.

"Help me!" James voice again, just outside the circle, scared and hurting. "Help me! I got away. I got away but there's things out here ... chasing me. Let me in!"

"James?" Robbie's voice sounded like Elias's father's after his quarter bottle of whiskey, thick with fatigue. "Is it ... really-"

"Let me in! Oh God, they're close, they're coming! Let me in!" Gabbling in panic.

Elias saw again in his mind's eye that blistered face at the edge of the dark. He turned his to look at Kia. She made a small shake of her head. It was enough. He walked on with her, ashamed that it took so little to convince him.

He lies.

As if to back Kia up James or the thing pretending to be him let rip a scream of rage and began to howl curses after them. "I'll kill you! I'll fucking kill you! I'll eat your faces off the bone! I'll-"

The darkness grew shallow, chest-deep, waist-deep, knee-deep, too little of it to shelter James and he fell behind.

At last they climbed the embankment to the road and lay gasping on the asphalt, staring up at the moonlit wisps of cloud.

"Oh Christ..." Robbie rolled heavily to his side, retching. "What're we going to do?"

Staying where they were was not an option. Even as they lay exhausted the darkness crept along the road toward them. Elias climbed to his feet, feeling like an old man.

"C'mon. Every minute we stay here the crossing back to town gets longer."

Robbie struggled into a sitting position. "Can't we just go further up the road?"

"What if it comes over the top?" Elias asked. "By then it'll be four times further to reach the town side."

Slowly the three of them began to trudge back toward Aspiration. They came to the rise before Elt's Hollow and cresting it found themselves squinting into the headlights of several cars parked on the far side across both lanes. The darkness came higher up the slope than Elias had expected and extended far further toward aspiration than he had hoped. Their bikes, which they'd left fifty yards from the leading edge when they left were now lost.

"Hey! Hey!" People among the cars had spotted them.

"How'd you get out there!" A man with a deep voice.

"I know that kid!" A younger woman. "He's Benny Honecker."

"Get back!" Robbie tugged at Kia's arm.

"Why?" Elias followed anyway, glancing back once into the glare of the distant headlights before they vanished behind rise.

"When we turn up back in Aspiration those people are going to want to know how we did it!" Robbie hissed, his voice low despite the distance. "If we stride across and come out in front of them holding Kia's hands ... you think they're going to just let us go?"

Elias frowned. The sheriff was gone. His dad was gone. That one didn't feel real yet. But the question was real. Who was there left in Aspiration to hold things together? Was it just a three-quarters empty island with a bunch of terrified people running around in circles? And what would happen if the tide just kept on rising?

"We head off road, across that field," Robbie pointed. "Then cross over where nobody will see us go in or come out."

And so they did.

As they trekked across the dark-drowned field, tugged at by the wind, an image stuck in Elias's mind. When he was little he used to watch his mom make the jam every summer. Redcurrants, blackcurrants, gooseberries. They all went into the pot to simmer in their own juice. Then she would add the sugar, emptying two-pound bags into the dark and bubbling liquid. So much sugar that it made a mountain, the top building clear of the liquid. And Elias would watch as the jam gobbled up that white island, devouring its edges, seeming to rise relentlessly, though it was the island that sunk. His childish imagination had populated the island with tiny humans running around on their ever-diminishing sanctuary until at last the peak vanished beneath the surface.

If they survived the crossing, that image was what awaited them.

The three of them limped into town along the disused rail track. Robbie's watch said it was two in the morning but he'd forgotten to wind it and didn't know when it had stopped. The slight lightening of the eastern sky made Elias think it was closer to 4am.

"We should go to my place," Elias said. "Those people knew you."

"They called me Benny," Robbie snorted.

"They called you Honecker."

Most of the houses showed no lights but every third or fourth one had every light blazing, though with all the curtains drawn. Elias guessed that nobody was sleeping and the dark houses were empty, their owners stranded out of town.

On Tulsa Road an old man patrolled with a flashlight and shotgun. They avoided him. On Kennedy Street some teens had Iron Maiden blaring as they jumped from one car to the next in a game over over-sized stepping stones. Elias saw beer bottles in their hands. Again the boys led Kia around by a different way.

They made it to within four blocks when without warning all the lights went out. Every house went dark.

"Shit."

"Where does the power come from?" Elias asked.

"Don't know," Robbie muttered. "Not Aspiration though. The power station must have gone under."

"Or the lines." Elias could see enough by moonlight to get them to his house.

Robbie turned his flashlight on. "Save it," Elias said. "We might need it later." Also, he didn't want to be seen.

At the bottom of his street Elias stopped and watched the silent yards, the parked cars, the dark windows.

"What is it?"

"Just looking," Elias muttered. "If Mrs Eaves found out who we are she could be watching the place."

Kia touched his hand. Or left some inside. The words sounded in his head. He shivered. "Or inside."

In the end they crept to the garage and entered it by the side door using the key hidden beneath a fake rock. They slept on bedrolls from the camping gear stashed there. All of them were hungry but none wanted to eat. Especially not if it meant daring the house to reach the kitchen. Their thirst, unlike their hunger, could not be ignored, but Elias's dad had twelve big soda bottles full of water in the garage, his 'hurricane supply'.

They talked of setting a watch and Elias didn't imagine that any of them could sleep despite all that their final crossing had taken out them. Somehow though, the end of that conversation eluded him and the next thing he knew was raising his head to daylight streaming in around the edges of the garage door.

"I hurt all over." He sat up, looking at the sleeping mound that must be Robbie and at the empty sleeping bag where Kia had been.

"Shit! Robbie! She's gone!" Elias leapt to his feet, aches forgotten.

"Who?" Robbie rolled over, still half asleep.

"Her! Kia!" Elias ran for the outside door and wrenched it open, throwing up and arm to shield his eyes from the dazzling sunshine. How long had they slept?

Kia looked up from where she crouched under the apple tree and held up an immature apple between finger and thumb, grinning.

"Get back in!" Elias ran across to her. "Get in! Anyone could see you!" He remembered Mrs Eaves and her talk of a bloodhound. Clearly they weren't watching the house yet, but how long would it be before they arrived? As things got more desperate the townsfolk would quickly become willing to help anyone who claimed to have a way out.

Kia frowned as he reached to grab her arm.

She is not near. The words pulsed into him as he made contact.

"She might be soon!" He pulled her back to where Robbie was hanging out of the open door. "Kia says the witch isn't close."

"Good, I'm starving!" Robbie didn't wait to hear more.

By the time they joined him in the kitchen he had half the contents of a jar of peanut butter mounded on a slice of white bread. He'd eaten most of it before they sat down with their own, a bowl of cereal for Elias, most of the rest of the sliced loaf for Kia.

"You don't want anything on that?" Elias asked as Kia started to cram the first slice into her mouth.

He pointed to the butter beside Robbie and the jam. She gave him a puzzled look and continued to devour the bread as though someone might take it from her at any moment. When Elias rolled his eyes and turned to Robbie he found his friend had stopped eating, mid mouthful, and instead was staring at the tablecloth with tears rolling down his cheeks.

"What-"

"They're all dead," Robbie said. "Our families, everyone who went out after James. All of them dead. Or worse."

None of them spoke after that because the 'worse' was that they were like James and, whether they came back with the tide or ahead of it, their return didn't bear thinking about. Elias didn't feel like eating after that, but he ate because hunger is older than sorrow or fear and must be fed.

"Why Mr Davis?" Robbie asked. They hurried along the street trying not to draw attention to themselves. Kia they had given a baseball cap, a Bon Jovi T-shirt and a pair of Elias's pants, rolled up at the ankles.

"Because he's seen it, and he knows things, and he's the only grownup we know who is probably still at home. The sheriff said he was sick, remember?"

"I still say we should try to get out," Robbie said.

"If the road to Scottsville is clear we'll see it from up on West Hill. Though even if it is clear we probably need a car to get all the way clear before it gets closed off again."

"That shit might not come back tonight." Robbie didn't sound convinced though and Elias made no reply. "Why isn't anyone here? Where are the state troopers? They could come in on helicopters if the roads are blocked!" Again, Elias had no answer.

The emptiness of the streets proved to be another strangeness. There had been more people out in the small hours of the night than now in the early afternoon beneath the sun's heat. What few residents could be seen were continuing to work on the barricades that had started going up across town the night before. Quite what they were supposed to be for Elias wasn't sure. They must know that cars and tires and trashcans wouldn't stop the tide. It seemed that the residents of Aspiration were as concerned about protecting themselves against each other as they were about the encroaching darkness. Elias could see a certain logic to it. As the remaining space was eaten away at the edges then hanging on to what was yours would become harder and harder.

Over on Pike's Hill a fire had broken out amid the big houses near the top. It looked to be burning unchecked and the smell of it reached the children on the wind.

West Hill's gradient turned out to be even more daunting after broken sleep and lacking whatever it was that Kia took out of them to hold the darkness away. All three of children bent their heads and sweated on up toward Mr Davis's apartment with only the occasional glance around to check for the Eaveses. It wasn't until they reached the street where their teacher lived that Elias turned to survey the view.

"Holy shit..." Over to the north where from this elevation you could usually make out the Atlantic Ocean as a thin grey line dividing land from sky was a broad black line like a hole in the day. It seemed almost as if that part of Elias's retina had been scratched away. And turning to encompass the rest of the panorama he saw that blackness repeated closer to home, appearing in black lakes wherever the landscape dipped. Local topology hid much of the ground making it unclear whether the flooded areas were unbroken in a ring about Aspiration or if a path to freedom might be threaded through. To the south, half of Briggen Wood lay hidden beneath the dark, the rest stood clear though no longer green. The tide had even reached some of the houses that strung out along the coast road where it left town. Some were still submerged, some had been left as the tide retreated to its daytime low, and now stood among tainted vegetation. Elias shivered and wondered whether the occupants had followed the tide's withdrawal or been stranded in their homes.

Robbie came to stand beside his friend, silent and watching.

"Let's go," Elias led off again.

They climbed the steps to the door of the house where Mr Davis lived and found his bell on the panel of six. They rang. Twice. "He's gone," Robbie said.

Elias rang a third time and a hoarse voice crackled through the intercom. "Who's there?"

"It's us!" Elias blurted out, surprised. "Elias and Robbie and ... a friend."

"I'm sick. You should go away." The intercom clicked off.

Elias rang again, shouting through the door. "We need help!"

The voice came again. "Go back to your parents, boys."

"They're gone. Everyone's gone!"

A long pause. A crackly sigh. "Wait there."

A minute passed, maybe another, then footsteps and the door opened. Mr Davis looked as sick as he claimed, one eye very bloodshot, skin grey, his right arm bound up with so many bandages – pillow cases, Elias thought – that it was three times its size. Below the elbow dark, wet stains mottled the layers. A smell rose from the man, rank and sickly sweet.

"Come on." Mr Davis turned away and walked slowly down the corridor to the door of his apartment.

Elias followed, then Robbie, Kia reluctant at the rear, leaving the front door open behind her. The hallway was strewn with random items that might have been dropped as other residents left in a hurry.

"Come." Mr Davis ushered them into his living room. The TV in the corner showed only static and hissed quietly to itself.

"Hey!" Robbie said. "You've got power!"

"A generator in the garage," Mr Davis husked. "Should keep the house going for a day or two." He paused at the door to the kitchen. "Wait here." He waved his good arm at the couch and went on through.

"Is he OK?" Robbie whispered, watching the door.

Kia shook her head. "No."

"What?" Robbie whipped around. "You can talk?"

Kia shrugged.

"But you-" Robbie couldn't find the words for his outrage.

"She never said she couldn't," Elias said. "And if she had she would have been lying." He picked up the remote and started to flick through the channels. The local stations were all dead except for one which showed a black screen rather than static. Somebody was muttering. Elias turned up the volume.

"...going to throttle you, drown you in your own blood and wear your skin, then find your-"

Elias changed channel again. He found one showing the news. Waves of interference swallowed the signal periodically but the clear sections were long enough to hear snatches of the report. The announcer looked scared but managed to keep the fear from his voice. The phenomenon seemed to be worldwide with every country affected at the coastlines. A dark tide moving further inland night by night, swallowing communities, isolating then drowning higher ground. Mass panic and migration across all fifty states. President Reagan due to address the nation at three.

"Turn it off." Mr Davis walked back into the room. "They don't know anything. It's just the same thing on repeat."

Elias thumbed the volume to zero. "What is it then?"

"You expect me to know?" Mr Davis sat in the lounger, careful of his arm. He had a tumbler of whiskey or something similar in his good hand. The skin along one side of his neck was blistered and discolouring. He shook his head. "I can hear it. Whispering in my head." With a groan he lifted his bandaged arm. "Got the poison in me. Like that dog that bit your brother, James." He frowned and fixed on Kia, huddled between the boys. "You're not James." He shook his head again as if to get rid of the distraction. "There's crazies on the TV saying it's God's judgement. It's evil rising from Hell. All of those things."

"It kinda looks like it," Robbie muttered.

"I'm a scientist. Not much of one." Mr Davis coughed and wiped his mouth. "But I can see this, measure it. It's there. It's real. That makes it part of the world, part of science. You just need to figure out its rules." He leaned back and swigged his drink. "You know that exactly a hundred years ago Lord Kelvin, a very famous astronomer, discovered that six sevenths of the universe was dark matter? Stuff we can't see..." He was talking as if he'd forgotten they were there, as if some lord a century ago was more important than telling them what they should do now. "And now astrophysicists know that not only can't we see these six seventh, we can't touch them either. We only know it's there because of gravitational effects. Think of it. A whole 85% of what's in the universe completely separate from us. Unseeable, untouchable. And gravity should draw it toward us. There could be a whole dark matter world sitting on top of ours, orbiting a dark sun where our sun burns. Maybe other lifeforms living on it, moving through us, separate. And you know what else all our scientists know about dark matter?" He paused as he did in class, scanning their faces for signs of an answer. "Nothing! That's what else they know about it. Nothing at all. They say that matter and dark matter don't interact. But they don't know if that's always true. And the whispers in my head." He fixed his gaze on Elias as if noticing him for the first time in a while. The bloodshot eye looked as if it belonged to another man, or something else entirely. "The whispers are telling me that something is breaking out of that dark world, something that's part of their world, and now part of ours, changing both, changing what it touches."

Elias found the courage to speak. "How do we stop it?"

"Stop it?" A harsh laugh. "How do you stop the sun shining? King Canute tried to stop the tide a thousand years ago. People are still laughing at him. You can't stop it, child. You better run. Run and hope. They say hope floats..." He drained his glass then winced. "You have to go. You can't come here again."

"Why-"

"Because I'm a danger to you! Because- If you could only hear what they want me to do ... you would already be running." He tried to rise from his chair and failed. "Get out!" Shouting now. "Get out! Run!"

And they ran.

Elias led them out of town. On the way they took two bikes abandoned in someone's front yard. Not as good as the ones they'd lost but better than walking. Elias would have looked for a third but Kia had no idea how to ride.

"You can speak?" he asked her before they set off on their stolen wheels.

She nodded.

"But you're not going to?"

A small smile and slight shake of the head.

Robbie looked back at his passenger. "Living with that witch must have screwed her up." He shook his head. "Hold on tight."

Coming down West Hill the thing to watch out for was going too fast, though the lack of traffic made that less important than normal. Elias kept pressure on his brakes, watching left and right for trouble. The barricades had grown, couches and chairs in the mix now. He saw two men with rifles over their shoulders. He thought briefly of the pistol his father kept in a locked case in his bedroom closet, but going back to the house was inviting Mrs Eaves to find them.

At the bottom of the hill when their speed ran out Robbie called to an old man dragging refrigerator out into the street. "Why you doing that, mister?"

They came to a halt close to him, but not too close. Something told both boys not to trust anyone. "It won't stop the flood."

The old man paused, sweat running down his face. Elias recognised him but couldn't say where from. The 711 on Watkins maybe. "Some crazies running around, they say." He wiped his face.

"Crazies?" Elias asked.

"Uh huh. That's what they're saying. You touch that black shit and it'll eat into you. Drive you stark staring mad. That's what I heard. So we're protecting our homes." He nodded to the far end of the street where others were at work. "Don't you boys go near that black shit. Just gotta dip a finger in and you won't know your own mother. That's what they're saying." He dropped his gaze as if feeling guilty, then returned to dragging his refrigerator to join the defences. The boys cycled on, leaving him to it.

The dark tide looked more unnerving by day than by night, its unnaturalness brought home by the stark contrast. It looked wrong, as if there had been some kind of mistake in the special effects department. The darkness stretched toward the horizon, broken here and there by hills then defeated by the rising land. Out to the west storm clouds were gathering and already the forerunners had cast a shadow over the day.

"It's higher than it was last night!" Robbie pulled his bike up outside the Texico gas station on the Charles road. It marked the end of the town proper. Beyond the gas station there were no more streets, just the road to Charles and dirt tracks where those of a more independent nature built their homes with sufficient elbow room, meaning that generally all they saw of their neighbours were distant rooftops. "It's still rising!"

"No," Elias drew alongside Robbie and Kia. "It might be a bit higher than when we left it, but it's lower than it reached at its deepest." You could see it in the scattering of houses around the edge where the black ripples lapped. The houses that marked the line of the high tide were stained, mottled with black mould, paint peeling, windows broken here and there, tiles shed from the roofs, flowers in the yards robbed of petals or warped into new and disturbing forms, their colours stolen. The darkness had retreated a few hundred yards, further where the gradient was shallower.

"Well, at least we know where most of everyone left is," Robbie said, nodding toward the crowds.

A stream of people and cars wound their way in both directions, following the perimeter, looking for a way out. It was slow progress, congested, cutting across open areas or winding through the unmetalled backroads.

"Should we join them?" Elias asked.

"Got something better to do?" Robbie started forward, and with a shrug Elias followed.

They cycled nervously between the houses that had gone under then been returned by the tide. At first you could see the level as a line of discoloration around the walls but further on the houses had been drowned entirely, doorstep to TV aerial. Many of the people hunting for a way out refused to enter the zone between the high tide mark and the black sea, but Elias wanted a closer look. From beyond the point of highest reach the view of the flood was often obstructed, something could be missed.

"Do we really have to come this close?" Robbie asked.

"There are as many people going round clockwise as anticlockwise," Elias said. "What does that tell you?"

"That they didn't find a way out in either direction."

"Right. So unless they missed some narrow bridge of land by being back there ... there's no way out." Elias dismounted and started to walk his bike along the new shore, a stone's throw from the edge. "Also, there's hardly anyone this close. Which is good because we don't want to be seen."

Elias led them counter clockwise. First between the houses, then across a meadow where the grey grass turned to dust beneath their feet. Despite the emptiness and the nearly unbroken silence Elias felt 'seen'. The sensation of being watched was almost a physical pressure. Elias's imagination put blood-filled eyes into the shadows within the houses they passed and filled the blackness to his right with the lost, standing motionless, faces raised toward the surface. Which was nonsense he told himself, particularly as the stuff wasn't more than inches deep to start with and wouldn't hide a person until you went a good thirty yards out.

"Careful!" Robbie put an arm out. Elias had been going to squeeze through a gap in the hedge that crossed their path. On the far side a collection of farm buildings sprawled amid grey, empty fields. "Scratch yourself on that and you might end up like Mr Davis."

They followed the hedge to a gate and climbed over the rusting bars.

"This is the Hennings farm," Robbie said.

A dead pig lay between the farmhouse and the nearest barn. A big one, flesh tainted, its guts strewn across the yard as if it had been hit by a Mack truck going ninety. Several of the outbuildings stepped into the flood, one long barn clear at one and half submerged at the other.

"Wait up," Robbie from behind.

"What?" Elias hissed, turning.

"She doesn't want to come."

Kia was still standing back by a tractor collapsed onto the rims of its wheels, the tires perished. It had probably been gleaming new the day before but now looked like the hulks farmers abandon behind their sheds.

Elias beckoned her over. "Come on!"

Kia shook her head.

"She knows stuff. We should go." Robbie started back.

"But-"

Several shapes broke from the cover of the farmhouse. "Get the girl!"

Immediately all three of them took off running. What followed was a confusion of shouts and breakneck speed. Swerving around farm equipment, sharp turns between out buildings, hurdling obstacles. Elias had no idea where he was going other than 'away' and no notion of where the others had got to. He swerved around the corner of a long low barn near the edge of the dark and pressed himself to the brittle planks, heart pounding, desperate for breath but trying to stay quiet.

"...came this way..."

"...other one..."

Voices not far from him, getting closer.

Elias cast about for somewhere better to hide. He had no intention of going inside any of the structures. Somehow that scared him more than being caught by whoever was chasing him. A ladder stood against the barn not far from his position. A modern aluminium ladder coated with powdery white oxidation. Quickly he went to it and climbed up, every creak and groan of planking sounding like a shout of 'here I am!'

He spread himself out on the roof, not trusting it to hold his weight. The darkness had been here and chewed at the structure, leaving the wooden shingles grey and loose. No straight line remained in the long span of the roof. Instead it resembled an ocean swell, dipping here, rising there.

Elias lay still and silent. For what seemed an age he heard nothing. Then suddenly the ladder jerked and someone began to climb it. Unthinking panic took hold and Elias had gained his feet even before Billy Cesar's ugly grin appeared over the edge. The boy's eyes, brimmed with malicious glee, but were blood-free, and his face while dirty and bruised along one side was not the blistered nightmare James's had been. Even so Elias ran, careless of the roof's slant and the splintering of supports. Shingles sprayed out beneath his heels as he went.

Billy followed at a more leisurely pace, walking around the areas where the roof sagged most.

Elias reached the far end of the barn and found that his panic had led him to a dead end. The dark tide lapped around the walls of the barn, maybe six foot deep. He turned to see Billy Cesar approaching, and back on the ladder the head and shoulders of another of Billy's gang.

"Where you gonna run to, kid?" Billy closed the gap. "Try it!"

Elias did try, running up across the peak of the roof and slithering down the other side. More shingles flew he as scrambled away. Billy showed an equal disregard of danger and greater speed, catching him by the far edge. He twisted a hand in Elias's T-shirt and held him leaning out over the blackness. Elias grabbed Billy's wrist but didn't struggle. Billy's grip was the only thing stopping him from toppling out over the drop, and Billy's own balance looked anything but stable.

"Where's the girl?" Billy asked, his voice even.

"I- I don't-"

"Don't know?" Billy shook his head. "I hope you weren't going to say that. If you don't know then I haven't got a reason to hold on to you."

"I- Please!" Elias would have told if he knew. Anything to stop from falling.

"That old witch on Franklin Street's laid down good money for the girl. If you know where to find her you're worth a thousand dollars to me. Otherwise ... just the fun of watching you drown."

Even the raw terror throbbing through him couldn't stop a small part of Elias wondering what possible use Billy thought a thousand dollars would be to him.

"So where would your little friend take this girl then?" Billy shook Elias, causing his foot to slip, making him scream. "Spit it!"

In desperation Elias let go of Billy's wrist and reached for his pocket hunting his penknife. Somehow the hand came back up holding the bike light Robbie had given him the night before. Elias's fumbling had turned it on, the bulb's glow seeming feeble by day, even beneath a clouded sky.

"None of that." Billy slapped him across the face and the flashlight went tumbling away to the blackness below.

Elias watched it go, face stinging, hypnotised by the fall. Against all expectation when it hit the surface the flashlight vanished only momentarily before bobbing up then turning to float with just the glass front showing and the rest hanging beneath, unseen.

"Weird shit." Even Billy was entranced.

The flashlight hung there for a moment, then the light died as the darkness worked its ruin on the batteries and the whole thing sunk from view.

A shout came from the ladder. And another from some unseen gang member on their side of the barn. "I see her!"

Billy shook his head. "Don't need you." With a sharp jerk he shook his hand free and in the next moment Elias was falling.

Although falling seemed to take forever Elias had no time to look around. All he saw was Billy's grinning face, frozen in a look of expectation. The ground came suddenly, driving all the breath from Elias's body. It took a moment before he could look around him. He'd landed on his back in a pile of old tires. The dark tide rose all about him as if driven back in a great splash, leaving Elias at the bottom of a black bowl, cut by the barn wall. For a few yards all around him the blackness had been entirely driven away.

"What the fuck?" Billy leaned over, astonished, perilously close to falling himself.

Whatever the fuck was, Elias didn't know. Then, as if in answer, the side of his bowl opened to reveal a trench leading to shore through the darkness, and running down it, Kia followed by Robbie. Two of Billy's gang stood at the margins of the tide, uncertain!

"Stop them!" Billy roared. And on seeing their continued hesitation he reached around behind him, producing a handgun from the back of his pants. He pointed it at the teenagers. "Go! Fucking go!"

The pair, evidently in no doubt about Billy's readiness to shoot them, started along the trench in pursuit as Kia reached Elias. She fell sprawling forward and in that moment the trench behind her closed. The bowl shrank rapidly, the darkness closed overhead and the light vanished. Elias's scream couldn't drown out those of the boys who had been chasing them. It took a few moments before he realised that all he was suffering from was terror and a heart pounding hard enough to break itself. It took a few moments more for Robbie to find his flashlight and turn it on.

Kia had managed to maintain a dome around them, just large enough to prevent contact with the dark tide. Robbie opened his mouth to speak when the first gunshot rang out and the dirt inches to the left of Elias's head puffed up.

"Shit!" He scrambled from the tire heap. "Move!"

Kia tried to rise but it wasn't until Robbie turned the light on her and took hold of her arm that she found the strength. A second shot punched a hole in the tire where Elias had been lying. Without further comment Elias took Kia's other hand and the three of them walked off, hidden beneath the darkness.

After twenty yards Elias spoke. "Let's double back and come up on the far side of the farm. We don't want Billy to spot us. Mrs Eaves has people looking for us, and if money doesn't work then she only needs to tell them what Kia can do."

The other two just nodded. Elias understood their weariness. Already he could feel Kia drawing strength from him, an unpleasant tingling traveling up the marrow of the bones in his arm, close to pain.