Mike felt his way along the central corridor, leaning his body lightly against the wood panelled wall for direction. Tara gripped his left arm like a vice and after the brightness of the light and the crescendo of screams the darkness and the silence that now followed felt both perpetual and disorientating. The only sounds that now befell his ears were his own laboured breathing, the sound of their feet as they shuffled along the thickly piled carpet and the occasion sob from Tara.
“He’s g-gone, Mike,” she sobbed in a voice that was no louder than a whisper. “He had hold of m-me, then he d-didn’t and now h-he’s gone.”
The central corridor came to an end and Mike knew that now they were in the kitchen. No moonlight came from the windows or the half-glazed panel of the back door and he had
