Billy had not prepared for this.

His short time on this planet had been fraught with misunderstanding and confusion, but never actual danger. He had always thought that the Shadow was simply part of what his mother had called his 'silly imagination', undulating tendrils of cold blackness slithered everywhere he looked.

So he ran. To the only place he had ever felt safe. A place in which he had enjoyed many quiet and happy hours alone, away from the horrid children at school, away from the worried glances and over-protection at home and entirely cut off from the Real World.

He found the allotments one warm Sunday afternoon. He sneaked out of the house after his weary mother fell asleep by the fire, exhausted from a week of cake sales and charity work. She didn't have much of a social life either, spending much of her time watching over her son. Billy often wondered if she herself were the cause of the Shadow, smothering him under a dark blanket of oppression, but he normally found he was able to single out her emotions from the multitude and besides, it had still followed him here, to his safe place.

Billy skipped through the allotments back to an overgrown patch in the corner. Behind the huge thicket of brambles, nettles and roses squatted an old shed, long since overcome by twisting, clawing ivy that prevented the flimsy construction from collapsing. A large fence post held the door open, which a habit of becoming stuck when it swung closed. The Shadow did not seem to want to crawl through the thorny mess to get to him.

He felt safe here.

Over the years, Billy had filled the shed with junk he collected from the edges of the allotments. Broken shovels, buckets, old rusting wheelbarrows and an assortment of broken tools lined the walls. He spent the day collecting extra straw and sacks for bedding, sneaking out whenever he saw the allotments were empty, and stealing what fruit he could find; mostly apples and pears. There were some vegetables in the ground, but being a little boy, he had no desire to crunch through bittersweet roots, no matter how much his stomach complained. All through the freezing night he suffered with terrible pangs of hunger, but did not dare to venture back out into the darkness, lest the man with the cold hand and the black coat was there, waiting for him.

He sat down on an upturned bucket, dropping his armful of fruit onto the upturned wheelbarrow table and thought about things. He thought about how his mother would be telling him to wash the fruit and lay it out to dry. How she would make him wash his hands before touching the juicy red apples. He thought about the previous evening and the old man's strange behaviour, and what happened afterwards.

Afterwards.

Surely he had not run far enough.

Sooner or later somebody would come here and find this place, find him living in this stupid tiny shed, cold and dirty, smelly and hungry.

The quiet man would come first, Billy was sure of it. Rather the police, than him.

Hungrily munching on a sweet pear, Billy wondered what his mother was doing now. He could see her vividly, wringing her hands and weeping. She would not be able to cope with his sudden disappearance. If he could, he would have left a note or something, but there simply hadn't been time. He was too busy running for his life. The old man had spooked him enough with his conspiratorial mutterings, but all Billy could think when he'd left him behind, was Blue. The colour of cold terror and emptiness.

He had known something was wrong when he left the old man. The night did not feel right. The Shadow had shifted around him, as if drawing away from him like the sea sucking back from the shore before a tsunami hits. The same second he had reached the front door of his own house, a second that had seemed to last for an age, a hand fell upon his shoulder, a quiet, cracked male voice said, 'Hello William,' and he had dropped to the ground, rolled over and run for his life.

The wave hit the shore.

He had not looked back. Not once. A voice like that does not need a face. Who hides in gardens trying to grab seven year-olds? How did the man know his name? In his flight Billy vaulted the garden fence, which was almost taller than he was, sprinted across the field into the woods and ran as fast as he could until his chest hurt and his legs burned.

Now he was not so sure of himself. He had had a day here - and a much more haunted night - with very few people around and no-one seemed to be interested that the strange little Speers child was missing. Perhaps it had been his wonderful imagination carrying him away on a darker path. Only the echoes of the old man's worried voice had prevented Billy from shrugging the whole incident off and going home to face his mother. He had heard him muttering as he ran away; I thought I could keep them away but it's all starting again, the old man had said. Billy had known Davey all his life and he had never, not once mentioned the Shadow or strange people hiding in the darkness.

Until last night.

It always starts again.

Billy felt the insistent presence of the strange little box in his coat pocket and pulled it out nervously. He hadn't really looked at the thing yet, he had been too cold and frightened. He supposed that if it weren't for the hunger, he wouldn't have ventured out at all. The cartoon man's face on the little wooden box was twisted into a hideous rictus of fear, his eyes wide open and staring at Billy. There is no hope for you here, boy, the contorted face seemed to say. It was almost as if the little man could speak inside his head, but Billy knew the difference between 'thinking' and 'hearing', even if the two did become blurred at the edges on occasion.

'I know,' Billy said to the box, his eyes stinging, 'but I don't know what to do!'

His voice was breaking, what was a child supposed to do? He had not looked back. Not once. Was it cowardice? Was he really as bad as the other children at school made him out to be? He had supposed the man was chasing him, but he might just as easily have turned around once Billy was out of the way and gone into the house after the little boy's mother! Billy thought about Thomas, the fat cat, his only true friend in the world, how he wished he was here now, how pathetic the thought was. While Billy wept, the cartoon man's face slowly twisted into a look of deep sadness.