the heat from the fire is so intense it feels as though it is melting me, my skin stretching and twisting on my bones. harriet and i watch in horror as the yellow and blue flames scorch into the night sky. the physicality of the fire is terrifying, confirming that our nightmare is real: until now it has been possible to be mildly detached from the drama, because it has been played out in the abstract, with only ghostly visions and the sad remains of former atrocities; now, though, now the danger is real, and harriet and i are chillingly aware of our predicament.

the vision of weaver morgan slides and melds around us, sometimes in front of us, sometimes behind us, sometimes appearing to hover next to us, but always watching, always casting his eye balefully over us; we can never see him actually move, and yet he is always transient, never still. it is unnerving, demonstrating his casual control over the scene.

"what the fuck do we do?" asks harriet plaintively.

a wall of noise erupts over us, dismissing her question as an irrelevance. it surges around us, sweeping us into its maw, the sheer, dizzying volume reducing us to quivering masses. i screw my eyes shut and clap my hands over my ears, crouched into a foetal position, vainly trying to escape the assault. it rips through my brain and seems to fill every cavity in my body, the booming, hurtling noise echoing and reverberating, redoubling its volume, rising to a pitch which i think i am soon going to be unable to bear.

crying, i look up, and surrounding us, ten feet away, is a ring of fire.

we are completely trapped. i can see nothing, only the licking, stentorian flames which are about to bring our death. they tower over us, rising hideously, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five feet in the air, and they are dense, dense enough to obliterate the night beyond. hope, that last vestige of humanity, begins to seep out of me, leaving me desolately to my fate. i raise my head and wail into the night, wail to the fates, wail in protest at an injustice being done. above us, a million miles away, is the black sky, a perfect circle edged by the inrushing flame, an unreachable moment of tranquility captured within the ravenous borders of the inferno; it looks like a tunnel, a passageway to heaven, and i think fancifully of floating upwards away from danger into the arms of salvation.

harriet is clutching me, shielding her eyes from the intense heat, and i hug her, glad not to be alone at the moment of death. the wall closes in on us, inching forward with cruel certainty. the force of the conflagration seems to be concentrating, the flames flickering and merging, drawing into one another and gaining in intensity; it is getting brighter and brighter, and the caustic glare rasps at our eyeballs; meanwhile the noise is overwhelming, a torrid, surging, steaming whoosh of tumult; the heat, too, is growing unbearable, scalding our throats with every laboured breath, flaming into our lungs, opening up a new front in this battle, attacking us from the inside out as, all around us, the fire bears down.

i stroke the skull of the little girl, my scorched fingers gaining solace in its smooth texture. "please, little girl, please help us," i plead. she has rescued me once before, in the slaughterhouse, but i fear this may be beyond her.

my scalp feels like it is shrinking as the heat pours over us. harriet reaches out and places her hand on the skull beside mine, flattening her palm against it, and together we hold it, stroking and caressing it, showering it with a tenderness it never knew in its brief, pained life. since the attack by weaver morgan it has been almost moribund, pulsing weakly and ineffectively.

"please," says harriet, "help us." our attention seems to galvanise the skull; the intermittent glow becomes stronger and more regular, and once more i recognise the transformation which overtook it in the slaughterhouse. the bone seems to come to life, a translucent glow illuminating it, the texture becoming softer, membrane-like. suddenly, it starts in my hand, a shocking, jerking motive power which almost knocks it out of my grasp. instantly, it emits a shrieking, penetrating kinetic force. the overpowering, complex assault on our senses from the encircling fire is countered by the energy from the skull, and for a hopeful moment it seems that the heat, the light and the noise around us become more bearable.

as we watch the skull the eye sockets glow and gleam, deep and resonant, filled with a strength i cannot comprehend. without warning, a huge jet of water spumes out of each socket, merging a couple of feet in front of us and forming a gigantic spout which explodes straight into the heart of the engulfing flames. at first, it appears to have no effect. slivers and droplets of water rain back on us, steaming and hissing, enveloping us in a cloud of despairing anticipation, but still the circle is unbroken, still death marches on us. the skull is shimmering silver and amber, its angry sockets alive and eager as it spews out the containing flood of water. it continues its assault on the flames, and it may be my imagination but for a second it looks like a small hatch opens up in front of us, a minor indentation in the wall of flame, a momentary breach. it disappears as quickly as it emerges, but the skull has found a weak spot and concentrates its energy on it. gallon after gallon of water is hurled against the fire and, finally, a shaft of darkness can be seen, an avenue to hope.

no bigger than a dime, it is nonetheless an opening, and the jet of water rips at it, sliding back the layers of defence, shredding the flames around it, gradually revealing a larger and larger hole. through it is nothing, a vast expanse of darkness which now looks so comforting, so reassuring, that is is impossible to imagine we were ever afraid of it. the hole grows in dimension until it is three feet high, and above the cacophony of noise i yell to harriet to run through. terror is etched on her face, but she nods grimly, kisses my cheek and relinquishes her hold on the skull. bowed as though the weight of the world is on her shoulders, she launches herself into the hole and disappears into the void beyond. i am alone in the circle of hell. i hold my breath and close my eyes. gripping the skull firmly in front of my stomach, i let out a scream of defiance and throw myself at the hole.

i expect to find myself on the other side immediately, but i am shocked to find that instead i am in a long, fiery tunnel. i can see the end, but have no notion of how far away it is. i am surrounded by flames, behind me, in front of me, above me, their heat licking at my skin, singeing my hair; i almost panic and stop, but i know that would be fatal and i push on, trying to ignore the agony lashing my back and face and hands. gasping, i stagger forward and just when i think i can take no more i feel a wave of fresh air on my face. in my haste i trip over my feet, but as i am about to stumble and fall to the ground, where instant death would await me, i feel a pair of hands grab me and pull me forward. i lose sense of where i am and collapse into a roll, desparately trying to push myself forward, straining to free myself from the tortured confines of the flames. i can feel my back on fire and as i look around i see a gobbet of flame licking at my jacket. harriet is there, beside me, and i realise i am on the outside. she beats at the flame with her hands and throws sand on me. i roll on to my back and rub myself against the cold, dry earth, and the flame dies. everything stops, an awful silence which lasts for seconds, and i wonder whether i have died.

i lie, panting, on the ground, and harriet kneels beside me. her grime-marked face looks at me worriedly.

"you okay?" she asks.

"yeah, great," i say. i don't know whether i'm okay or not; i feel so numb i can't tell whether i've been hurt or whether i escaped unscathed. gingerly, i feel my back and discover a hole has burned through the jacket, my jumper and tee shirt, exposing burned flesh on my shoulder blade. as soon as i notice, it hurts like hell and i let out a cry of pain. "what about you?" i ask in an attempt to take my mind from it.

"i've broken a nail, but apart from that i'm terrific." a wave of affection washes over me as she says that: in these circumstances, after that experience, to be able to joke is so cool. i stretch up and stroke her arm. "now what?" she says.

once again, harriet's question is rendered obsolete as a bolt of flame swishes across the night sky and lands at our feet. i guess it was naïve to think it was over, and weaver morgan, i realise, is back. a fusillade of fire-streaks erupts around us, fizzing over our heads, exploding onto the ground at our feet, whizzing past us in a ceaseless volley. we run heedlessly, with no idea which direction we are running in. we are in the middle of the clearing and know we have to try to reach the cover of the trees. weaver morgan's missiles rain down, each one narrowly missing us as we jink and weave in panic around the dark clearing, eyes straining for the line of trees which will provide us with protection.

i am conscious that, despite the barrage of fire, nothing is hitting us, and with a sickening lurch i realise: weaver morgan is playing with us. he can destroy us whenever he feels like it, but he is like a cat toying with a startled bird, tormenting us, goading us, allowing us to believe we have an opportunity to escape: a vain notion of the possibility of rescue before he descends for the final kill.

"bastard!" i scream. in the dim and flickering light of the fireflashes i see the austere line of trees in front of us and rush towards it. i flatten myself against the solid bark of a redwood and come to a halt, breathless. i will not be used like this; if he wants to kill me, let him do it now, face to face; i refuse to run and cower any longer. i turn and face him, staring into the eyes of evil. it is hard to describe. his eyes are smiling, friendly, his entire demeanour is one which would not be out of place in a family gathering. he is spookily avuncular, and yet at the same time there is a looming, edgy presence about him; the smile is not one of amusement, but of gloating, and behind the friendliness lies a malicious intent. the evil is masked by banality.

harriet has followed and is at my side, doubled up, hands resting on her knees, heaving air into her lungs. she looks up.

"issy!" she screams, and i follow her horrified gaze across the clearing towards the crackling, burning remains of my car. through the shimmering haze i see little issy running towards us, her face broken into a rictus of terror.

"issy, go away," i yell, but the child presses on. as weaver morgan's wicked firecracks descend on her, landing inches from her darting body, she runs as fast as her little legs can carry her, arms outstretched towards me pleadingly, just as the little girl had that hideous moment two nights before; finally, agonisingly, she reaches us and wraps her arms around my waist, burying her head in my stomach.