They were coiled in knots, each one loosely wrapped round the others. I turned away and doubled over. The handful of crisps I’d eaten landed with a faint splat on the filthy floor. The glass of the five other tubes was just as dirty, and – mercifully – just as difficult to see through. I didn’t want to know what floated within them. I hoped I’d never know. But I’d seen the baby, and I knew I had to look at it again. I had to figure out what I was dealing with, who I was dealing with. What kind of person could do something like that to an infant? Joseph’s words came back to me. There was someone in here worse than the other monsters I’d encountered. I’d found it difficult to believe. Now I wasn’t so sure. I forced my eyes down past the baby’s waist. Even through the orange goo, the tentacles looked glossy and slimy. One of them – the one that was less tangled than the others – dangled about thirty centimetres down the tube. Uncoiled, I guessed it would stretch to over half a metre in length.
