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“Hello?” she shouted. She hoped this warning to those inside that she was a human and not some other more worrying animal would be enough to prevent anything being fired her way through the door as a precaution. They were strong but she doubted they were bulletproof.

“Hello?” she called again, pushing open the door that she noted was slightly ajar.

She was greeted by a rifle muzzle. It was the larger of the two men looking down the barrel at her, his finger caressing the trigger. The other man seemed perfectly relaxed. He was sitting on one of the chairs with his feet upon a coffee table.

“Who the fuck are you?” said the larger man, sunglasses perched over his balding head.

“Steph!” she replied.Steph?Why use her real name? Did it matter? Probably not. The man on the sofa barked laughter. The rifle-wielding one did not smile.

“OK, who the fuck are you,Steph?” he said. There was a definite London undertone to his accent. “And don’t say ‘me’ or I will shoot your shitting teeth out!”

“I work here but…” Steph tried to remember what Kelvin had said. He had made out that the situation was going to be straightforward with little conversation. Instead, she already felt that the line of questioning was drawing her away from the prepared script she had in her head. She was no actor. Shecouldn’t improvise! Why did he want to know who she was instead of where the hell she’d come from?

“But everything has gone wrong!” she panted. “People are dead! The animals are… are out of control!” Would they believe this? It sounded vaguely correct. No, it sounded very accurate. But was it what someone in her situation would choose to say?

“Are they now?” said the man.

“Yes!” Steph implored. “I’ve lost friends! They’re dead! I saw my best friend getting ripped apart by wolves whilst they were still alive!” She began to sob. At least, she was trying to sob. She cuffed at her face anyway and then turned to shut the door.

“Hey!” said the man with the gun. “Nobody said you could fucking move!”

“Didn’t you hear a bloody word I said!” she suddenly screamed, whipping around. The man on the sofa sat up a bit and the man with the rifle widened his eyes. This was the encouragement she needed. “It’s not safe out there!” She slumped against the door looking at the shins of the man ahead. “It’s not safe out there…”

The two men looked at each other. Through her peripheral vision, Steph could see them gesturing to each other.

“Anyway.” She sniffed. “Who are you?”

“Never you mind who we are!” said the larger man before his friend stood up sighing.

“Ignore him,” said the smaller man, walking over and putting a hand on his friend’s rifle to lower the barrel. “We are here to sort thismessout. I must apologise for my associate’s behaviour, but his nerves seem to have got the better of him. He shouldn’t have pointed a gun at you, but as I am sure you’re aware, this is an interesting situation we have walked in on.”

“So you work for Kelvin?” Steph asked.

“Yes,” the smaller man said, bending down to offer Steph ahand. The lie rolled off his tongue with such ease that Steph was almost inclined to believe it despite knowing it not to be true.

“But we haven’t been able to communicate with him since we got here. Is he still alive?”

“I think so,” Steph said, allowing herself to be guided to a seat. “He escaped when the cave lion got loose. I saw him run into the woods but…”

“And Martina?”

Steph was impressed with the casual use of first names as if the man had been a regular acquaintance of these people.

“She’s alive, I suspect,” Steph said. “She was with me until we became separated.”

The man leant forward.

“Where was that? What happened?”

“We were trying to head to one of the gates, but we were cut off by the cave bear. I went one way, she went another.”

“Why did you separate?”

“Because it chased her and not me.”

“Why didn’t you head back towards the gate once it had gone after her? Are you sure she escaped it?”

The intensity in the voice was increasing ever so slightly. She pretended not to notice.