KAH!

It’s the cough of the Devil.

And ten seconds later, when its horned head appears at the entrance to the snow cave, and it stares at me with its demonic yellow eyes, I honestly think this is it — this is the end . . . I’m literally dying of fright. But then, to my amazement, the demon suddenly freezes, a look of surprise in its eyes — as if it’s only just realized what it’s looking at — and a moment later it rears back in fear, throwing its head to one side, and then it’s gone. I can hear it running away, a panicked barreling through the snow . . . and I don’t get it, I don’t understand why the Devil is scared of me . . .

It’s the Devil.

And I’m me.

The fear’s only supposed to go one way.

It doesn’t make sense.

KAH!

Unless . . .

BAAHH . . .

Unless.

It’s a sheep, Elliot. That’s all. It’s just a sheep.

I remember now . . . the sound of a sheep coughing, like a sick old man. I remember hearing it at night sometimes, before I had my fear-proofed room.

KAH!

I remember.

I remember imagining a field full of sick old men, out there in the darkness, coughing themselves to death . . .

And I remember making myself forget it.

Come on, Elliot, Ella says. We need to get going.

I know she’s right, but the trouble is, although sheep are nowhere near as scary as the Devil, that doesn’t mean I’m not afraid of them. They’re animals, they’ve got teeth, hooves, horns . . .

They’re more afraid of you than you are of them.

“Frightened animals are dangerous.”

You’re an animal, aren’t you? You’re frightened.

It’s a good point, and as I start crawling out of the snow cave — aware now that my bare foot is completely numb — I try to convince myself that I am a dangerous animal, and that from now on, nothing’s going to get in my way, nothing’s going to stop me, and if anything or anyone tries to . . .

“Oh, no . . .”

I’m kneeling at the edge of the snow cave now, and as I look across the field toward the gate, all I can see is sheep — hundreds of them, all flocked together in front of the gate, all of them facing me, all of them staring demonically at me.

You’re dangerous, remember? Ellamay says. Nothing’s going to get in your way.

“Well, yeah . . . but I didn’t know there were going to be hundreds of them, did I?”

There aren’t hundreds of them, Elliot. There’s about thirty, thirty-five at the very most.

“That’s still quite a lot.”

They’re sheep. They’re not going to stop you getting to the gate. As soon as they see you walking toward them, they’ll run away.

“But what if they don’t? What if they decide to attack me instead?”

They won’t.

“But what if they do?”

They won’t, Elliot.

For the next thirty seconds or so, I just kneel there in the snow-whitened gloom, studying the almost motionless sheep. The faded light from the streetlamp down the road gives them an oddly unnatural look — kind of dull green and grayish, like the images on a CCTV monitor. A car goes down the road then, and as it passes the gate — with a brief sweep of headlights — all the sheep turn their heads to watch it. They all move at exactly the same time and in exactly the same manner. It’s as if the flock itself is a single organism, with a collective consciousness of its own.

And the problem for me now is that it looks as if that consciousness has decided that the best thing to do at the moment is stay exactly where it is, right in front of the gate.

You have to get out of here, Ella reminds me. Get back to the road, find your Wellington boot, get moving again.

I stand up, take a quick look over my shoulder — just in case anything’s creeping up behind me — then I start making my way through the snow toward the flock of sheep.

They don’t move at all, they just carry on standing there, watching me as I limp toward them. The closer I get — and the longer they don’t move — the scarier they become. I can see the wicked black slits in their eyes, and their vicious black hooves pawing at the snow. I can see the raw strength in their bodies . . .

Keep going, Elliot . . . they’re going to move.

“They’re not.”

They are. Just keep going.

It’s getting harder with every step. It’s as if there’s an invisible force field between me and the sheep — a force field of fear — and the closer I get to the sheep, the stronger the force field becomes.

I’m about ten yards away from them now.

And that’s it. That’s as close as I can get. The force field is an invisible wall. It’s physically impossible to get past it.

Keep going . . .

“I can’t.”

Yes, you can. Just another couple of steps.

The sheep are all tensed up and twitchy, and I know that if I move any closer, they’re going to charge at me. I just know it. I can feel it.

Can you see your stuff anywhere? Ella says. The stuff that fell out of your pockets?

I focus on the area just in front of the gate, searching for any sign of my phone, keys, and flashlight. But it’s hopeless. I can barely even see the ground because of all the sheep, and the patches that I can see are just a sheep-trampled mess of churned-up mud and snow. There’s no sign of my Wellington boot either, and I wonder briefly what’s happened to it. Has the monkem-dog-lady taken it with her? Maybe the two monkems in the car told her where I live, and she’s left the boot at my front gate . . . ?

It doesn’t matter.

Whatever’s happened to it, the boot’s not there anymore.

Try moving sideways, Elliot, Ella says. See if that works.

I take a step to my left.

Thirty-five heads (and seventy evil eyes) follow my movement. But the flock doesn’t move.

I take another step to my left.

This time the sheep do react, but instead of moving away from the gate, they actually seem to relax a bit, as if they’re more content to stay where they are. And I realize then that although I’m moving sideways, I’m actually moving away from the sheep, which serves no purpose at all.

I move back to my original position. The flock tenses up. I take two steps to my right, and the flock relaxes again.

They’re not going to move.

They might if I got closer to them, but I can’t. And I can’t get to the gate without getting closer to them.

“I don’t know what to do, Ella.”

There’s no reply.

“Ella?”

She’s gone.

It happens sometimes. She’ll be with me, talking to me, and then — for no apparent reason — she suddenly disappears. I don’t know where she goes. And neither does she. I just kind of stop being, she told me once. I don’t have any awareness of anything. I’m just there, and then I’m not. And then I come back again.

I’m so cold. And tired. The bone-deep pain in my bare foot is creeping up into my leg, and my foot feels black and rotten. Like a dead thing.

I need to rest.

I need to lie down and go to sleep . . .

But I can’t.

I need to get out of here.

I start moving back from the sheep, and when I can’t feel the force field at all anymore, I stop and gaze around, searching for another way out. On this side of the field, the side next to the road, there’s enough light from the streetlamps to see that there aren’t any other gates, and that the hawthorn hedges surrounding the field look impenetrable. They’re about six feet high, and so thick and densely packed — and the thorns so razor sharp — that if I tried squeezing through, I’d be cut to pieces in seconds. And even if I could find a gap somewhere, I can see now that on the other side of the hedge there’s a three-foot-high wire-mesh fence, topped with double strands of barbed wire, and on this side of the hedge there’s a fairly deep ditch, which effectively makes the hedge and the fence even higher. The rest of the field is too dark to see if the fence and the ditch go all the way around, and I know that beyond that darkness at the top of the field, there’s another darkness, deeper and blacker . . . the nightmare darkness of the woods.

I don’t want to go there.

I can’t . . .

I’d rather be cut to pieces.

I head off back the way I came, following my tracks in the snow.

There has to be another way out of here . . . there has to be. And if the only way to find it is by walking all the way around the field, checking every inch of the perimeter, then that’s what I’ll have to do.

I look at my watch.

It’s 4:45.

Under normal circumstances, my last fear pill shouldn’t be wearing off just yet, but these are far from normal circumstances, and I’ve got a terrible feeling that Mr. Beastie will soon start rattling his cage. And if that happens before I find Mum and get my pills . . . ?

No.

It can’t happen.

It can’t.

I’ll dig myself out of here with my bare hands if I have to.