Then, as he scrambled to his feet again, the wolf noticed that the centre of the earthquake was directly beneath the tomb of Leonard Moffett.   Gradually the vibrations built up in intensity like a volcano about to erupt, until the half-metre thick marble lid shattered — making the black wolf back away hurriedly as large chips of marble went flying in all directions — then bulged upward like a developing volcano until the large chunks fell away from the tomb, exposing the dirt beneath.   Slowly the brown earth began to push up from underneath, until at last a long, thin, jaundice-yellow coloured snake-like object pushed up from the soil.

It was only as the fingers began to move that the wolf realised that it was a shrivelled human arm, seemingly dried crisp like the withered hand of a badly preserved Egyptian mummy.

As more and more of the dried, fleshless arm began to appear, the black wolf bolted for cover behind a large tomb a half-a-dozen metres away.

Gradually a second hand began to push its way up from the earth, followed by a skull-like head, to which only a few threads of mouldy, yellowing flesh still loosely adhered.    For a moment it seemed as though the creature was stuck.   The black wolf watched spellbound with horror as it wriggled around as though unable to pull itself up any further.    But finally the neck and shoulders appeared, followed by the chest: hardly more than dry bones, covered by hanging strips of yellow flesh and one remaining withered breast, allowing the wolf to know that whatever else the monster was (or had been) it was female.

‘The old hag!’ thought the black wolf.   He realised that this was what was left of the old woman who had gazed back at Tony Frankland forty years earlier, through the eyes of Leonard Moffett and wondered who or what the old woman had been in life.

As the wolf was considering its origins, the monster finished pulling itself up from the shattered grave and began looking all around itself, as though aware that it was being observed.   Tiny — less than 150 centimetres in height — the creature was barely more than a skeleton, yet seemed to possess tremendous strength.