In the narrow alley, Sam and Tink turned one way and then the other. The tumult of wind and sand was choking. A slow-rolling, knee-high wave of sand had only just pushed into the narrow mouth of the passage, when another unfurled over the top of it, probing further. There was no way to look at it and think it was just sand. It boiled with countless particles, moving as a viscous liquid, but that movement had a sinister purpose, at predatory intent. From the other end of the alley, features obscured by the swirling dust, a figure moved towards them in swaying steps.

  High garden walls flanked the latter half of the passageway and the houses towards the front. Sam and Tink were half-way between the twin dangers. Sam thought about trying to scale one of the walls. They were maybe six feet high. Possible for him. He wasn’t so sure about Tink, who was considerably shorter, barely over five feet. If he straddled the top, he might be able to help pull her up; or she could go first if he gave her a boost.

  Tink had other ideas. She let go of his hand and tried the handle of one the building’s back doors. In their hurry, and with his lack of familiarity with the town, Sam had missed them, or maybe it was the city boy in him that couldn’t imagine anyone leaving their homes unlocked. The first door, however, was locked and quickly Tink moved to the other. No luck there, either. It seemed like the wall was their only option. As if coordinated, the sand coming from one direction and the figure from the other, both closed within nine feet. If they were going to go, they needed to go now. Sam was about to grab Tink’s arm and shout over the noise of the rushing wind, when Tink raised her knee high and stamped on the door. It shook in its frame, and she stamped a second time. The sand and figure lurched another foot closer. Sam didn’t wait for Tink to ask him; he joined the effort, timing his kick with hers. The soles of their feet connect fractionally after each other. The door didn’t budge, but like an old steel hip replacement set into arthritic bone, Sam felt weakness in the lock.

  Their peripheral vision was filled with slow-moving menace. In wordless agreement, they took a collective breath, shielded in the crooks of their elbows, and stamped with everything they had. For a heartbeat, the door resisted the attack, only to give up, its structural tolerances reached. It slammed open, crashing into the interior wall before bouncing halfway back. They shot inside.

  With the tumult of the alley behind them, churning beyond the open door, it was as though they’d surfaced to take a breath, only to find the air tainted. They found themselves in a dank kitchen. Mould speckled the walls and formed black constellations in the corners. The place had been abandoned for a long time. The cloying mix of alkaline damp and stale mustiness made the air fetid. Tink slammed the door and pressed her back against it.

  ‘The chair,’ she cried.

  It lay toppled on one side. Understanding what Tink meant, Sam scooped it up and jammed it back under the doorknob. They’d destroyed the lock coming in, but there were deadbolts at the top and bottom of the door. Sam, being taller, reached up. Tink crouched for the lower one. The bolt was cold and rough with rust under Sam’s fingers. It gave a piersing squeak of protest as he levered it up. At first, it didn’t want to slide across. The metal bit into his skin as he gritted his teeth. It gave way suddenly and shot across, locking and stabbing one of Sam’s nailbeds. He hissed and sucked at it reflexively, tasting the rust, but Tink was struggling with her bolt. He squatted next to her. Shoulder to shoulder, his hands over hers, they wrestled with the bolt.

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  The door thudded. Sam pictured the amorphous figure, still without definition, a blurred shadow with unnatural solidity, hammering a fist on the door, every bit one of the vengeful ghosts in John Carpenter’s The Fog. They redoubled their efforts. Another thud made the wood shudder. Sand began to seep through the gap under the door. They flung themselves back, both crab-walking away on hands and feet, the door creaking under the pressure.

  ‘Where do we go?’ Sam said, unable to keep the panic from his voice.

  Tink sat staring at the sand, leaking in with the same ill omen as the first lapping puddles of floodwater before the levee breaks. The lower half of the door was bowing. The wood gave a crack and the chair juddered but held.

  ‘Tink!’ Sam shouted and shook her shoulder. She snapped out of it, seemed to register Sam, and scanned the room like a frightened animal.

  ‘This way.’

  Two doors branched off from the kitchen. She opened one into another empty room, with a lifeless three-bar fire, suspended on a wall papered with magnolia woodchip wallpaper which blistered and peeled away in leprous patches. The carpet was a dark swirl of what might have once been abstract flowers, too stained by time to be sure. Tink dipped her head in and drew back, heading for the other exit, taking Sam by the hand.

  ‘Overflow,’ she said, leaving the door open, leading Sam into a narrow hallway. Tink twisted back to kick the kitchen door closed, and then dragged them down the hall.

  They ran down the hall, feet drumming as fast as their hearts. The front of the house was boarded up, but through cracks Sam could see the sand building up higher and higher, blocking out the meek light. A boa-constrictor squeezing the life out of its prey, its weight and pressure were a tangible thing, as if it compressed the air, making it heavy, weighing down his limbs.

  A sharp turn at the foot of the stairs and the back door gave with the reverberant thunderclap of wood violently breaking. They didn’t pause but Tink’s hand squeezed Sam’s tighter as they fled up the stairs. More sickening cracks followed. Wooden boards splintered. Glass shattered. The house seemed to wheeze at each puncturing of its defences. Then the soft hush of sand, as menacing as a hissing viper, flooding into the ground floor from multiple wounds.

  The first-floor landing wasn’t much more than a shoulder width-L of more squalid carpet, which four doors led out from. Sam guessed they would be for a bathroom and three cramped bedrooms. They tried the first door immediately in front of them.

  ‘No lock,’ Tink said, being the first in. They ducked back out. The sand had reached the bottom stair. Sam stared at it, the way it poured in from the broken front windows and door. It was mesmerising, how it whispered and slunk.

  ‘Sam, snap out of it.’ Tink tugged hard on his arm. She opened the other door at the back of the house. It was a bathroom, replete with a grey porcelain suite of toilet, sink, and bath. The sink was cracked, the toilet had no seat, and with the added spice of sewage it smelled even worse than the rest of the house. But it had a lock, another deadbolt, a crappy nickel plated one. Tink dropped Sam’s hand and slid the bolt closed. She rested her forehead and one palm of the back of the door. Her face and hair were dusted with sand. Sam guessed his would be too.

  ‘What the fuck is going on?’ he said.

  ‘I made a mistake.’ Tink lifted her head up and turned to face him. Her eyes were glassy, and a single tear burst over the bank of her eyelashes and trickled down her cheek, cutting a path through the sandy rime. ‘I’m so sorry; I didn’t know.’

  Sam was frustrated and afraid, but he also didn’t like to see this girl, whom he’d only just met but liked, crying. Adrenalin was surging through him. She was acting as though it was all over, whatever this was. He wasn’t ready to give up.

  ‘What? What didn’t you know? Tell me what’s going on?’