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Rancid breath filled Toby’s nostrils. The creature’s white eyes were locked on his, their faces separated by inches. Trying to kick his legs, he discovered that they were rigid, pinned to the floor.
No, not the floor, he realised, looking past the creature’s head. The ceiling!
Disorientated, he had assumed his body slammed into the floorboards. But a light that blazed suddenly in Stella’s hand told him otherwise. It was only now he noticed that all around the furniture was floating. Drawers rattled, orbited by asteroid belts of bugs and dust. The rotten carcass of the wardrobe drifted past him, upended, ghoulish faces appearing in the whorls of the woodgrain.
‘Harry! Let him go! He’s a friend!’ Stella yelled over the creature’s banshee screams.
‘You should not have come here!’ the
