"Alright," Helena called back, her voice still shaky. The man sounded reassuringly human, not like a ghost at all but the voice was unfamiliar. When she heard him come up the stairs she raised her lamp for a better view. The poker too went up a few inches. If it<em>was</em>some kind of creep she was going to give him such a whack and then she was going to scream and no-one did screaming like Helena...<br/><br/>Luckilly, he proved a perfectly normal-looking, neatly-dressed man and she relaxed a little, lowering her weapon.<br/><br/>Then the lights went out and someone screamed.<br/><br/>Helena froze, too scared to move. Minutes seemed to pass in the darkness, the only sound that of her heart beating madly. Then something charged past and threw her aside. She fell, landing painfully against the banister at the top of the stairs. The lamp flew from her hand and shattered on the floor below but the poker was still there. She had a weapon! She turned around, swinging the iron implement wildly in a two-handed grip but the creature, some kind of creature, had already run ahead.<br/><br/>Whatever it had been it was gone. For now at least.<br/><br/>"The children..." she choked, her companion in the darkness as good as forgotten. She dropped the poker with a clang and rushed back the way she came, feeling her way along the walls, back to the nursery. "James! Alice!"<br/><br/>She should have never left them.