Bump. Bump. Bump.

"Someone's coming up the stairs!" Mummy gasped. Violet, pruning pink in the hot bathwater, stopped splashing. Suds of soap plopped from her open mouth. Frozen despite the steam, only her eyes moved towards the door.

Bump. Bump. Bump. Louder.

"Here they come!" Mummy wailed. And the they couldn't be Daddy because he was at work, and it couldn't be Auntie Stacey because she was at her hospital appointment, and so who else could it be but a stranger, uninvited, striding up the steps with easy confidence, and any minute now a hairy hand would reach for the handle and twist and be there in the room with them, and then Mummy was laughing and tickling and trying to tell Violet that it was all a trick, that she had been tapping on the metal bottom of the tub, and that it was over.

But it wasn't over, because Violet had never forgiven her mother for that one. It had left scars for life. And it also wasn't over because right now Violet was not four but thirty-one, and she was in her bedroom trying on a dress for the office party that night, and her mother was seventy miles away in a town all but forgotten to her, and yet still, here in the future and in her own house, there were footsteps on the stairs.

Bump. Bump. Bump. And this time, it wasn't the bathtub. This time it was real.

Violet froze. Her bare arms felt numb, prickling with goosebumps. Carefully, before she could drop it, she placed the perfume bottle on the dressing table in front of her. She looked in the mirror, to where the door stood motionless behind her, where any second, the hairy hand of a complete stranger would twist the handle, twist and enter.

Suddenly, she wished very hard that things were different. She wished that she hadn't told her husband to run ahead and help the assistant manager with the buffet. She wished she'd actually bothered to go downstairs and lock the door before getting in the shower. And most of all, she wished she'd paid attention to the news.

That was another of her mother's naggings. One of the many ways Violet had been found wanting under that disbelieving gaze. Violet never paid attention to the news.

"Maybe if you showed some interest in the world you'd know how to live in it," her mother had lectured, on too many occasions to count. "Like how to save money on that frightful insurance of yours, or how to choose anything but those hideous curtains." Or how to identify the great many threats that lurked in the shadowy parts around this estate, how to face up to them.

Bump. Bump. Bump. Closer.

Still rooted in place, Violet thought. Thought hard and fast. Past all the pointless bullshit that had gone on in front of her, focusing in on the dark things on the TV, always on in the background, always with those grim-faced, troubled reporters in front of something less pleasant and more important. There were the pigs, of course, but surely they would never get past the checkpoints. To somewhere safe, like here.

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But it wasn't safe, was it, Violet? Because one of those things the reporters had tried to tell her about was here with her now, coming up the stairs, getting closer every second. She reached out a shaking hand and picked up the shock baton from the varnished top of the dresser, the one Paul had insisted she keep close when she was alone, and the one thing she had listened to.

There were the homeless too, and they were closer to home right now. But they wouldn't dare come onto someone's property, or else the council would send something far more final than that clanking contraption after them.

What else, Violet. What else?

Bump. Bump. Creak. Whoever it was, whatever it was, they had reached the loose floorboard. The one just before the landing.

The cogs, sticky from the residue of good food and wine and comfort, turned slightly. She was sure she had heard something about those robots again, the ones from that factory that went bust. She extended another hand and picked up the shining barrel of the emergency disconnect flare from the chair. That would stop one, guaranteed. If it was them.

Across the plaza, under the scrutinising glare of the security lights, the party would be underway.

Were the terrorists still about? The ones from Satellite 6? Or was it Satellite 7? Either way, they'd leave you alone if you handed over some funds for the cause. She was certain she'd read that in one of her magazines. Possibly.

She picked up the wad of notes she had been saving for the bar.

Clump. The softer landing carpet, under the bulk of something slow and plodding.

And now, some animal instinct had taken over. It was like there had been a camera in her mind, recording all along. She'd always been told to try harder, but now she had taken a step back, let her subconscious do the work, it was easier.

Those government broadcasts never stopped these days. And sometimes, they were surprisingly useful, actually told you what to do rather than just that you were about to die. Lighter to scare off the ghoul-rats. Mint air freshener for the rust-worms. That crazy leaflet and calm repetition of "Death to the cow-killers" to ward off those radical vegans.

The world was full of danger, yes. But you could be prepared.

Slump. Slump. Slump. The final steps to the door.

A tube of garlic puree for the vampires. A handy bedside onion for a rogue police tiger. Salt for the nanobots. And a flea spray for the killer clementines, that latest of all the scares, but she hadn't got that had she, because she was so disorganised, so scatterbrained, always had been, ever since she was a kid, and always would be, if she got out of this.

She looked at her arsenal in the mirror. Never mind the flea spray, because even with those new implants, she'd still ran out of hands. If only she'd taken that off-world accountant role like she'd been told, she could have had the 8-Aid 5000 right now.

Slump. The last step. She was alone, she was forgetful, she was ignorant, but she'd always been brave. She'd made up her mind to be brave ever since that day in the bathroom. And instead of running for the panic room like she wanted, she turned, and strode across the room, and flung open the door with her talismans aloft. And dropped them, one by one, to clatter softly and uselessly to the landing carpet. Because nothing could save her from the creature that sniffed and shuddered and pawed at the wallpaper and clawed dust from the bannister and looked about the room beyond like it was evidence of the most awful life she had ever seen.

"Hello, dear," said Mother.