The Street

The roads that made up the new Diamond Estate were all named after gems. There was Emerald Avenue, Ruby Close, Garnet Crescent . . . and Bloodstone Street.

It started on the day the Peters family moved in. Patty was lying in the road and when her farther made her get up her body left a damp imprint on the asphalt.

"Look, Daddy," she said, "the street is crying."

But within days the tarmac was bubbling with a malevolent will of its own, sucking at the feet of unwary pedestrians, chopping at the arms of maintenance workers and redirecting the wheels of speeding cars.

The residents of Bloodstone Street had moved into open plan suburbia - only to find themselves trapped in a cul-de-sac of terror . . .