'Hello?' I call out over the creak of the door. 'Is anyone there?'

Only the boiler grumbles in reply.

'Well.' I square my shoulders. 'Okay then.'

I flick on my torch with a satisfying click - I already checked, the main's light is broken - slanting a thin column of light down the stone steps.

Despite the cold welcome, I begin my descent. I won't give Frankie the satisfaction of seeing me crawl back upstairs with my tail between my legs.

There's no handrail, so I let my fingertips trail the cool wall, not stopping to wonder why it feels sticky. And anyway, my fingers retreat into my cardigan sleeves by the time I reach the bottom in some vague attempt to keep my circulation going.

Down here, in the belly of the beast, the groans of the boiler are loud enough to make my teeth rattle in my skull. So I decide to just switch it off - surely Aunt Millie's telling off can't be worse than this wall of noise?

I set my torch down amongst the detritus littering the basement floor, old buckets, tool boxes and cans of paint, and clap my hands over my ears as I approach the boiler.

I know something's wrong the second I'm standing in its shadow. A chill radiates from it, the chill of a machine long out of service. And where it's usually bouncing around a bit in its iron frame it's dead still, no movement, no lights flashing.

No sound.

I take a step back. 'But that's not... no.'

Hands still covering my ears - the sound is muffled but still deafening - I fumble for my torch, the realisation that something else down here is making the rumbles and groans of the boiler. Sounds that Aunt Millie once said were awfully like someone wailing.

'Who's there?' I try shouting over the noise, but my voice comes out more like a squeak. 'If there's someone down here...' The words die in my throat as a small, pale hand creeps around the side of the boiler, its fingers clenched into claws.

'P-please,' I hear myself say, 'I'm not here to hurt you.'

Two beady pinpricks of light appear in the deep darkness behind the boiler - eyes, or something like them - above a grim slash of teeth - a mouth!

'Please, God no!'

But my screams are barely audible over the creature's wails as it swallows me whole.