I squinted about. ‘Don’t be stupid,’ I told him. ‘This is no time to be scared of the dark.’

‘It’s too quiet. Too still.’

‘It’s not back in there.’

Sounds of battle issued from within the walls of Castle Doveston. Breakings of glass and smashings of furniture. And the occasional thud as someone blundered into an invisible pillar. Although, in all the hullabaloo, you really couldn’t hear those.

‘Look,’ and Norman pointed. By the light that issued from the windows of the great hall, a rather dancing light with lots of moving silhouettes, we could see the big black lorries. They now had their tailgates down and ramps leading from their open rear ends to the ground. Norman limped on stockinged feet across to the nearest lorry.

‘We don’t have time,’ I shouted to him. ‘Come on, Norman, let’s go.

‘No, wait.’ Norman sniffed at the ramp. ‘Offal,’ he said, ‘dead meat. The lorries are empty, but whatever was in them dines upon meat.

‘Wild animals.’ I was soon at Norman’s side. ‘Set free in the grounds, just in case anyone was to escape the explosion.’

‘He didn’t miss a trick, the Doveston, did he?’

‘He never left anything to chance.’

‘Oh Gawd,’ said Norman and he pointed again. This time out into the night. I peered in the direction of his pointing and I didn’t like what I saw.

There had to be hundreds of them out there. Thousands, perhaps. Lurking where the hall’s light dimmed to night. Lurking on the edge of darkness, as it were.

Chimeras.

Fully grown? Half grown? Maybe just a quarter grown. But great big sons of birches none the less. Towering well above the eight foot mark, fanged-mouths opening and closing.

Chimeras.

Part sprout. Part basilisk. All predator.

Actually, if they ever come up with the technology again to make movies and they choose to make one out of this book, that would be great for the trailer. Imagine the bloke with the gravelly voice going, ‘They came from the night. Part sprout. Part basilisk. All predator.’

Mel Gibson could play me and perhaps Danny de Vito might be persuaded to play Norman.

‘What in the name of Meccano are those?’ Norman asked. ‘Are they triffids, or what?’

‘They’re what and we’re surrounded and time is running out.’

‘They’ll eat us,’ said Norman, shivering horribly. ‘I just know they will.’

‘Damn right they will. Norman, think of something.’

‘Me? Why me?’

‘Because you’re the one with the inventive mind. Come up with something. Get us out of here.’

‘Right,’ said Norman. ‘Right. OK. Yes. Well, all right. Let’s imagine this is a movie.’

‘What?’

‘It’s a movie and famous movie stars are playing us. You’re being played by Danny de Vito and I’m being played by Arnold Schwarzenegger.’

‘Norman, we don’t have time for this.’

‘No, think. In a situation like this, what would Arnie do?’

I looked at Norman.

And Norman looked at me.

‘Arnie would drive the big truck,’ I said.

‘Into the big truck,’ cried Norman and we made a dash for the cab. We dashed pretty fast, I can tell you. But you do have to hand it to the vegetable kingdom. When it gets the chance to do what it really wants to do, which, as Uncle Jon Peru Joans had told me all those years before, is, ‘get about’, it gets up and about at the hurry-up.

The chimeras swept towards us: a big green ugly snapping sproutish horde of horrors. We were hardly inside the lorry’s cab before they were all about us, evil tendrils whipping and big teeth going snap snap snap.

We locked the doors, I can tell you.

Norman was in the driving seat. ‘Drive,’ I told him. ‘Drive.’

‘Where are the keys?’ Norman asked.

‘I don’t know. Won’t one of yours fit it?’

‘Now you’re just being silly.’

‘Oh shit! Oh shit! Oh shit!’ I caught sight of the little dashboard clock. One of those digital jobbies. It read 23:59. ‘OH SHIT!’

Crack! went the window on my side. Snap snap snap went teeth.

‘You drive,’ yelled Norman. ‘I’ll reach down under the dash and hot—wire it.’

‘How?’

‘Do you really want me to spend time explaining to you how?’

‘No. Just do it.’

I climbed over Norman and he climbed under me. The crashing and bashing was deafening and the lorry was rocking from side to side. Then the passenger window went and we were in really big trouble.

Norman was frantically tinkering under the dash. I was clinging to the wheel and wondering just how you drove a big lorry when suddenly everything went a bit green. Very green indeed.

‘Aaaaagh! Get it off me!’ Norman kicked and screamed. The cab was a thrashing maelstrom of tendrils, gnashing teeth and really horrible sprouty breath. ‘Aaaaagh!’ wailed Norman. ‘It’s got me. It’s got me.

And it had got him.

I tried to beat the thing off, but I couldn’t do much with my fists. There was one of those big sunshield visor things above the windscreen. I figured that if I could rip that off, I could use it as some kind of weapon. I reached up and tried to tear it loose.

And guess what? There was a spare set of keys up there, stuck under the sun visor thing.

Just like there always was for Arnie.

‘Hold on, Norman,’ I shouted. ‘We’re on our way.

I rammed the key into the ignition. Chose a gear at random and put my foot to the floor.

And we went into reverse.

Now I’m damn sure that that never happened to Arnie.

The big lorry ploughed back into Castle Doveston, demolishing stonework and stained glass. I chose another gear. It was a good’n this time. The lorry lurched forward, bringing down further stonework and stained glass. Revealing the chaos within to the monsters without. But whatever horrors followed then, I didn’t see them.

I just kept my foot down hard and we took off at a gallop.

Now, big and mean and ugly the chimeras may have been, but they were no match for the lorry. We ripped through their ranks, mashing them under, me clinging onto the steering wheel and Norman clinging onto me.

‘The time,’ I shouted. ‘The time.’

‘I don’t think there’s any time left,’ shouted Norman. But there was.

Just a wee bit.

Just a final ten seconds.

Ten...

I whacked us up a gear and kept the throttle down.

Nine...

Inside the great hall, chimeras wreaking bloody mayhem.

Eight...

More chimeras up ahead.

Seven...

O’Shit and O’Bastard on the minstrels’ gallery bravely letting fly with their Uzis.

Six...

Splatter and splat as the big lorry mows down further chimeras.

Five...

Castle Doveston silhouetted against the full moon.

Four.

Blood and guts and gore and ghastliness.

Three...

Big lorry, engine roaring, ploughs towards the gates.

Two...

Danbury Collins awakens to find himself inside an invisible suit of armour. ‘What’s all this noise?’ he asks.

One...

Big lorry smashes through the gates of Castle Doveston.

Zero...

A very brief moment of absolute silence. Again Castle Doveston standing tall and proud and unsightly against that old full moon,

And then...

BOOOOM.

The biggest BIG AAAH-CHOO! that ever there was.