Samantha was aware of two things as she slowly drifted back to consciousness. She was cold and her head hurt. There were other sensations trying to intrude. A sound and a smell, but her mind was too fuggy to make sense of them and it was too much of an effort to open her eyes. She put them out of her mind for the time being, therefore, while she tried to remember where she was and what had happened to her.

She jerked up into a sitting position as it came back to her. Three men! They’d broken into her house and attacked her! Punched her in the face! Knocked her out cold! There was something else. Something terribly important, but it wouldn't come to her right now.

She forced her eyes open, half expecting to see them standing around her, but they were gone. The fridge stood open, it was empty. She assumed they'd taken everything and she groaned with misery. Then she looked down at herself.

Her shirt had been torn open and was hanging from her elbows, behind her back. It was the only thing she was wearing. She put a trembling hand between her legs, felt stickiness and groaned with sick horror. They'd raped her while she'd been unconscious. She shrugged the shirt back across her shoulders and held it closed with one hand while she climbed back to her feet. Where was...

Lily! God, how could she have forgotten Lily? She stared around the room, looking for her, then dashed into the kitchen, staggering and grabbing hold of the cooker to keep from falling. Her head swam with dizziness. The sound and the smell was getting stronger. What was it?

Her heart jumped with terror as she recognised it. The smell was smoke, and the sound was the crackling of a fire. They’d set the house on fire! Of course they had! Rape was almost unheard of these days because it was so easy to identify the perpetrators. You couldn't molest a woman without leaving your DNA all over her, even if it was just dead skin cells from your fingers. Even forcing the victim to take a shower afterwards didn't guarantee that it would get rid of all of it. The only way to be sure was to kill and cremate the victim. She'd still been solidly unconscious when they'd finished with her. It was pure luck that she'd woken up in time.

She could see it now. Yellow flames climbing the curtains and spreading out across the ceiling. They'd started half a dozen fires in different places! She ran from room to room, calling out her daughter's name in rising terror. Get rid of the kid, the father had said. What did that mean? What had they done to her?

The bannisters of the staircase were aflame, the fire eagerly devouring the varnish covering the wood. She brushed against them as she took the stairs three at a time and her shirt caught fire. She shrugged out of it and let it drop. The air was full of smoke and she held her arm against her face, as if that would somehow keep her from breathing it in. The bedroom doors were closed. She opened the door to Lily's room, threw it open...

Lily was lying on the floor. They'd wrapped duct tape around her arms and legs and stuck another piece across her mouth. She was bleeding from a cut to her head. The little girl stared at her mother with eyes wide with terror. Samantha scooped her up in her arms and turned to go. The stairway was a living mass of flames and she felt burning heat against her bare arms and legs as she tore back down to the hallway. She opened the front door and raced out into the front garden.

Outside, the cold air stung her bare body like a thousand tiny knives. Half melted snow squelched under her bare feet. Lily squirmed in her arms as she turned her head to see the burning house. Samantha felt goosebumps breaking out across the little girl's bare arms, where the tape wasn't covering them. They had to get inside, out of the cold. And quickly! Their car was gone. Stealing a car wasn't easy these days, but she had no doubt they were professional criminals and knew how. There were no other cars in the street. That meant getting inside a house. There were plenty to choose from, but they were all empty and locked up and she had nothing but her bare hands to break into one. Either that, or just run to keep warm and hope they met someone willing to help them.

Could their attackers still be around? Perhaps waiting to make sure that no-one made it out of the house? She stared around in sudden fear but saw nothing. No, they’ll be long gone, she thought. They wouldn't want to stick around in case the fire attracted the attention of the authorities. It made sense, but she still felt a sudden urgency to get out of sight, just in case.

One of her neighbours had a rock garden, and that decided it for her. She ran across the street, gently placed Lily on the ground and picked up one of the rocks. It was heavy, which was good. She hefted it in her hands and threw it at the front window with all her strength. It bounced off the double glazing without even making a mark.

She picked it back up and tried again. This time the glass cracked, and the third time it broke into large, jagged fragments. The house alarm began ringing, deafeningly loud. “Alert! Alert!” cried the house computer. “Stop your attack immediately! The police are being called!”

That suited Samantha. She wanted the police, but she suspected that this house’s computer would have no more luck getting through than her own had. She used the stone to clear the remaining glass from its frame, therefore, then broke the inner pane the same way. It took another two heavy blows from the rock, but at last the window was open, with warm air drifting out.

She picked up Lily again and climbed carefully through. She suffered a number of tiny cuts to her arms and legs, which she ignored. The front room was getting cold as the outside air drifted in, so she went through to the next room, the front living room, and closed the door behind them.

It was blessedly warm! She felt her bare body drinking in the heat and stood there for several moments, just shivering. The house computer was still shouting out its warning, still saying that the police were being called above the din of the clanging alarms, but the phone lines were almost certainly still overloaded. Still, it was nice to hope. She placed Lily carefully on the dining table and tried to pull the tape from her mouth.

It clung fiercely, and she had to peel it off one careful millimetre at a time while the little girl winced with pain. “It's okay, Lily!” she said as she did it. “You're safe now! You're safe!” The little girl just stared up into her eyes, nodding.

The tape finally let go and she rubbed it off onto the table to get it off her fingers. Lily gasped with relief, sucking in air. “Are you okay Baby?”

“Yes,” the little girl replied. “They set fire to the house!”

“Yes, I know.” She set about pulling the tape from her arms. “What happened to your head, Baby?”

“I tried to stand up, to get the door knob, but I fell over and hit my head on the bed. I fell asleep for a little while.”

White fury filled Samantha, and her hands shook so much that for a while she couldn't continue. If fate should ever bring her back face to face with those three men, she knew she'd kill them without a moment’s hesitation or regret. She forced herself back under control and returned to the tape binding her daughter's arms.

“Why have you got no clothes on?” asked Lily. It wasn't the first time she'd seen her unclothed. They'd liked to take baths together, but they wouldn't be able to any more. Seeing her naked would now remind Lily of this moment and would just cause her distress. Something else they'd taken from them.

“It doesn't matter,” Samantha replied. The upper arms were done. Now for the forearms and hands, where they were stuck to the sides of her thighs. The tape clung just as strongly as it had to her face, and Lily gave little gasps of pain as it tugged at her delicate skin and pulled out almost invisibly fine, downy hairs.

“Did they put their pee pees inside you?”

Samantha winced at the question. She’d explained the facts of life to her daughter. Never too young, she'd thought. It had seemed like a good idea at the time. “I'm okay,” she just said. Fortunately, Lily was too young to understand what rape meant, but as the years passed there would come a day when she did understand, and she would remember that it had happened to her mother. They were going to have to have a long, serious talk about it some time. It would be awful, but necessary.

“Are you going to have a baby?”

“No.” That, at least, was something she didn't have to worry about. Her contraceptive jab was good for at least another six months. Of course, there were any number of nasty diseases they might have given her. Maybe one of the antibiotic resistant ones. No time to worry about that now.

She pulled the past bit of tape from the back of Lily's hands. As soon as her arms were free she threw them around her mother’s neck and hugged her tight, her whole body shivering with fear. “Why'd they do it, mummy?” she mumbled into the side of her neck. “Why'd they do it?”

“They were bad men,” Samantha replied, hugging her back. “Some people are just bad. Not many. Most people are good. Most people are good. You have to remember that, Lily. You understand?”

“Yes, Mummy.”

Freeing her legs was much easier. She just took off her pants, tape and all, and threw them across the room in disgust. Then she looked at the cut on Lily's forehead. It had stopped bleeding on its own, but would probably need a couple of stitches. She looked into the girl's eyes and was relieved to see that her pupils were reacting normally. That and the way she was able to hold a normal conversation reassured her that she'd taken no lasting harm from the injury. She cleaned the cut with a damp towel and put a bandage over it from a first aid kit she found in the kitchen. Then she went looking for some clothes to wear, taking Lily with her. After what had happened, she knew it would be a long time before she could bear to let her out of her sight, even for a moment.

This house belonged to Andrew Beck and his family. His wife Cordelia and their eight year old son Roger. Cordelia was a larger woman than Samantha. Taller and fuller around the waist. Any clothes she found would hang on her like a tent, but there was no choice. The Becks wouldn't have left any perishable food in the house. If they wanted to eat they would have to go outside, and that meant they would need protection against the cold.

They went upstairs, therefore, looking for the bedrooms. The first room they passed was the bathroom, though. Samantha looked longingly at the shower. The urge to get in and scrub until she was red all over was almost overpowering. She could feel the sweat, the semen and the fingerprints they'd left all over her body and she wanted it gone! She still dreaded that her attackers might return, though, no matter how irrational she knew that fear was. She wanted to get further away! As far as possible! She couldn’t wait, not even for the few minutes it would have taken to have a quick shower. Also, the filth they left on her body (and in it! The thought almost made her freak out in terrified disgust!) was evidence. Evidence that would send their attackers to prison. She craved revenge on them, and this was how she would get it! If their DNA was on record, and she would be astonished if it wasn't, a simple rape kit was as all she would need to get it.

With an effort of willpower, therefore, she took Lily further along the hall to the bedrooms and a few minutes later they were dressed in clothes much too large for them, cinched close to their bodies with belts and shoelaces. Lily was wearing a pair of Roger’s shoes, padded out with three pairs of socks, while Samantha wore a pair of men’s shoes, brown and sensible. Cordelia, it seemed, only wore high heels, something Samantha had never gotten along with, despite being smaller than average even for an Asian woman.

Samantha then searched the house for food. As expected, the Becks had taken everything perishable, but they found a packet of breakfast cereal and a tin of biscuits in the kitchen. Then she wrote a note of apology to the family, explaining the reason for the damage they'd done and leaving a contact telephone number. Not her own number but Neil Arndale's number. Her own phone had either been taken by her rapists or was currently melting in the house fire, along with her tablet and all her bank cards. She could get new cards, she told herself. She’d memorized all her bank passwords which, along with an iris scan, would allow her to identify herself at any computer terminal, and once she had some new cards she could buy food and clothes for herself and Lily. Then, it would just be a matter of finding someone to take them in. She had no relatives in this country, but she had friends she could ask. One of them would have a spare room or something.

She nodded to herself. Yes, that was the plan. New bank cards, new phone, start calling friends. “Come on, Lily,” she said. “Time to go.”

“Where are we going?”

“To find a bank terminal. There's a couple in the high street.” If they're working, she told herself. The phone lines and the internet had been clogged to uselessness. Maybe the bank terminals used dedicated lines that remained unaffected. She wouldn’t know until she tried.

They packed their food into a rucksack, and then they put on heavy overcoats and woolly hats. Then, after slinging the rucksack onto her back, they left. They couldn't find the key to the front door so they went out through the broken window in the front room. Samantha closed the curtains after herself, maybe it would do something to keep the rain out. She felt guilty for what they’d done. She imagined Andrew Beck raging with fury at her, but they'd had no choice. He would understand. And if he didn't, too bad. She lifted Lily carefully through the broken window, avoiding the shards of broken glass around the edges, then climbed through after her.

Their house was well ablaze now. Lily stared at it, horror stricken, and Samantha took her by the shoulders to turn her away from it. “Come on, Sweetie!” she said, leading her away down the street. “There's nothing here for us any more.”

They'd left her to burn! she thought as they walked along the pavement, away from the burning house. They'd left her daughter to burn alive! Rage flared up inside her again. Her own rape was forgotten. What they had done to her daughter, the fate they’d left her to suffer, filled her with a fire of fury as great as the fire that was consuming their house. She realised she was holding Lily's hand too tightly and made herself relax a little. “This is an exciting adventure, isn’t it?” she made herself say.

“No!” Lily replied angrily. “I want to go home!”

“I know, but we'll find a new home, and it'll be even better than the old one!” She looked down at her daughter, and saw her looking doubtfully back up at her. She's a smart girl, she thought to herself. She'd not going to be taken in by any bullshitting. “We're going to be okay,” she told her. “I promise.” Lily nodded and turned to look ahead, in the direction they were walking.

Samantha looked back just once more before they reached the end of the street and passed out of sight of the burning house. All the clever plans I made! she thought, feeling sick despair threatening to sweep her away. Our fortress, in which we were going to ride out the nightmare! Everyone else in the street had been smart enough to get out. She'd stayed because of her pride, because she’d thought having advance warning gave her an advantage. The clever moon scientist whose job had allowed her to see what was coming ahead of everyone else. This was her fault, and now Lily was paying for it.

Then they turned the corner and the burning house disappeared from view. Samantha took a firmer grip on her daughter's hand and led her on, towards whatever comfort and safety she could find.

☆☆☆

The intersection with Sullivan Street was flooded, they saw. Briny sea water lapped lazily at the kerbstones lining the street and left small, broken strands of seaweed washed up on the pavement. To their left, the street that crossed the one they were following sloped downwards, all flooded. The water covered the gardens of the houses lining it, with carefully pruned shrubs and decorative ornaments rising above it like an archipelago of tiny islands. Further away, where the water was even deeper, wheelie bins, dustbins, garden chairs and even cars bobbed gently as they floated, gradually drifting together until they formed a single solid mass at the high tide line. Further away still, the water covered everything, even the roofs of the houses themselves, forming an unbroken expanse of water that stretched all the way to the horizon.

Lily and Samantha paused for a moment to stare silently at it. There was no-one else in sight, they had the whole town to themselves, it seemed. The only sounds were the gentle bumping of floating objects and the distant cries of seagulls. It was easy to imagine that they were the only two people left on the whole planet. Samantha felt Lily's hand tightening in her own. She was able to imagine the little girl's fear and loneliness because it matched her own.

“Looks like I'm going to have to get my feet wet,” she said. “Looks like it's just a few inches deep. I can carry you to the other side. You okay?” Lily nodded soberly. “Once we’re across the street we can walk on top of that wall to keep out of the water. Don't fall in, it's very cold. Okay?”

“Yes, mummy. I'm good at balancing.”

“I know you are. Here we go then.” She crouched down to let her daughter climb up on to her back, then stood, taking hold of her ankles. Lily shifted slightly into a more comfortable position on Samantha's shoulders and put her hands on her mother's forehead to steady herself. “Okay then,” said Samantha. “Here we go.”

She stepped out into the water. It was cold as it soaked into her shoes but she ignored it. She looked left and right as she crossed the road, driven by the habits of a lifetime, but there was still nothing. Reaching the other side, she lifted Lily up onto the brick garden wall, then climbed up after her. Her feet squelched with water.

Lily preceded her along the wall. Samantha kept her hands on the girl's shoulders as they went. Partly to steady her, partly just for the reassurance. When they came to an open gate, Samantha squeezed her way past her daughter to jump across first, then held out her hands to catch Lily as she followed. A little further along, the wall was replaced by a hedge. It supported their weight as they walked across it, although it sagged and bowed under them. Beside them, the water grew deeper as the road followed a shallow depression. After a hundreds metres or so it was three feet deep, deep enough that even the top of the wall was a couple of inches below the surface, but after that the street climbed again and after another thirty or forty metres they were able to climb down and walk on the dry pavement again.

It was beginning to get dark. Samantha looked up and saw that the sun was passing behind the moon. A colossal diamond ring with the sun as the jewel and the moon as a band of gold at least six times its normal diameter. She and Lily shaded their eyes with their hands as they watched the sun shrink until it vanished altogether. There was still plenty of light to see by, though, scattered by the moon's atmosphere. The moon was now a complete circle of fire surrounding darkness. An awesome and terrifying sight.

The high street, when they reached it a few minutes later, was as deserted as everything else they'd seen so far. Some of the shops, particularly the food shops, had been broken into. They looked, but they'd been completely cleaned out. They then checked the local media shop hoping it might contain a phone they could call someone on. There were plenty of phones and tablets on display, but they'd all had their batteries taken out and the door to the back room, where they presumed they were stored, was locked. Samantha tucked a phone into her pocket anyway. You never knew.

That left what they'd come to find. The bank terminals. There were three in the high street, one for each of the largest banks. She went to the one that served her own bank and found it to be dead. The power supply had been cut. The other two were the same, and now that she looked she saw that there were no lights on anywhere in the high street. “Chikusho!” she muttered under her breath. Lily stared up at her in shock, then grinned. The sight of her daughter smiling cheered Samantha immensely and gave her new heart and hope. She reached down and stroked the woolly hat the little girl was wearing on her head.

Back in the old days, phones had had their own power. You could still use them even if the power was cut everywhere else. Those days were long gone. No power these days meant no communications at all. “Okay,” she said to herself. “Plan b. We've got to find other people.”

“Uphill!” said Lily brightly.

“Yes,” said Samantha. “Uphill. There are two refugee camps in the area. Failand and Dundry. I think we should go to one of them. There'll be food there, medical people to look at your head. Communications. All I need is an internet link to the bank. Failand is closer...” She looked back the way they'd come. The water was still rising, she saw. Parts of the brick wall they'd walked along were now underwater. “But Dundry is straight ahead. Uphill.” She took a moment to see what the idea felt like in her head, then nodded. “Dundry it is. Let's go for a little walk, Lily.”

“Okay.” Samantha took her hand again and they continued along the high street to where the land rose ahead of them.

☆☆☆

Stuart and Jessica Kerr saw the column of smoke rising ahead of them for several miles before they drove into the road containing Samantha's house. Then they turned the corner and saw the building well ablaze, with flames rising thirty feet into the air. “Is that her house?” asked Jessica.

Stuart looked at the house numbers along the street. “Yes,” he said as he stopped the car a safe distance away from it. “Number three one nine. What the hell happened here?”

The doors opened and they got out. “Maybe she wasn't here when it happened,” said Jessica hopefully.

“Maybe,” said Stuart doubtfully. “Neil Arndale said she was hoping to ride it out in her own home, but she might have been out at the time. Watching the flood or something.” He looked at his phone again. It still showed no signal. Around them, it began to grow brighter as the sun came out from behind the moon.

“Tyre tracks,” said Jessica, looking down at the slushy snow. “One set of tracks arriving, two driving away. Maybe someone came to collect her.”

“And they just knew her house would be on fire?”

“Maybe they live locally and they saw it. Maybe they took her back to their house.”

“Maybe,” conceded Stuart. He walked past the fire to see it from another angle, then looked down at the slushy snow. “Footprints!” he cried. “Bare footprints!”

Jessica hurried over to see. “Who goes around in bare feet at this time of year?”

“She was indoors,” mused Stuart. “Maybe she just likes walking around in bare feet while indoors. When the fire started she just ran out of the house."

“And didn't take her car?” asked Jessica, looking back at the tyre tracks. “Someone took it.”

“The footprints lead... That house has a broken window. She must have broken in to find something to put on her feet. Yes, footprints leaving, wearing shoes. Two sets of footprints.”

“Neil said she had a daughter,” said Jessica. “Kumiko must have carried her here. Perhaps she was overcome by the smoke.”

Stuart nodded thoughtfully, then went to the house and climbed carefully through the broken window. Jessica followed him. They went through into the back room. Jessica gasped with horror when she saw the tiny pants still wrapped up in duct tape. “Dear God!” she whispered.

“Neil said she was only six!” said Stuart, equally horrified. “The poor mite! They got out, that's the important thing. They got away.”

“On foot. So, where would they have gone?”

“No phone signal. They couldn't call for help. I'm guessing the nearest refugee camp. After an ordeal like that, any mother would want a doctor to take a look at her daughter. There'll be doctors at the refugee camps.”

“Let's go.” They left the house, got back in their car and set off along the street. They went as far as Sullivan Street, where Stuart pulled up. The road ahead of them was now under water to a depth of nearly two metres at its deepest part. “I don’t imagine they'll have wanted to swim through that,” said Stuart. “And left goes down to the coast. Well, I suppose this is the coast now. They must have turned right.”

“The nearest refugee camp in that direction is Failand,” said Jessica, looking at an old fashioned paper map.

“Failand it is then,” then Stuart. He drove forward, the car cutting its way through the shin deep water, then turned right. After a couple of dozen yards they were on dry tarmac again and they picked up speed as they left the small town behind and headed out into the countryside.