‘No,’ Farnham said, a little too sharply, remembering Doris Freeman’s clotted hair and staring eyes.

Near the top of Crouch Hill Road, Doris and Lonnie Freeman turned onto Hillfield Avenue, which was lined with imposing and gracious-looking homes – nothing but shells, she thought, probably cut up with surgical precision into apartments and bed-sitters inside. ‘So far so good,’ Lonnie said.

‘Yes, it’s…’ she began, and that was when the low moaning arose. They both stopped. The moaning was coming almost directly from their right, where a high hedge ran around a small yard. Lonnie started toward the sound, and she grasped his arm. ‘Lonnie, no!’

‘What do you mean, no?’ he asked. ‘Someone’s hurt.’

She stepped after him nervously. The hedge was high but thin. He was able to brush it aside and reveal a small square of lawn outlined with flowers. The lawn was very green. In the center of it was a black, smoking patch – or at least that was her first impression. When she peered around Lonnie’s shoulder again – his shoulder was too high for her to peer over it – she saw it was a hole, vaguely man-shaped. The tendrils of smoke were emanating from it. SIXTY LOST IN UNDERGROUND HORROR, she thought abruptly. The moaning was coming from the hole, and Lonnie began to force himself through the hedge toward it.

‘Lonnie,’ she said, ‘please, don’t.’

‘Someone’s hurt,’ he repeated, and pushed himself the rest of the way through with a bristly tearing sound. She saw him going toward the hole, and then the hedge snapped back, leaving her nothing but a vague impression of his shape as he moved forward. She tried to push through after him and was scratched by the short, stiff branches of the hedge for her trouble. She was wearing a sleeveless blouse.

‘Lonnie!’ she called, suddenly very afraid. ‘Lonnie, come back!’

‘Just a minute, hon!’

The house looked at her impassively over the top of the hedge.