Adam clings to the tree as the wind blows around him. He can hear screaming, and knows it's coming from him, but he can't seem to stop.
The images of the last few hours are swirling in his mind — Sandra being held down by those boys, their underpants around their ankles. Peter and Jamie laughing and running off. Being chased by the older boys. The terrible scene he had come across, Jamie being held down like Sandra, Peter screaming at him to get the knife, Adam. His friends' dead faces. The voice of the man in his ear as he had forced Adam against the tree, wrenching his shoulder as he slashed at the cloth against his back. If you tell anyone, I'll come back and kill you. Your Mammy and Daddy too.
He doesn't know how long he's been here. Time has ceased to exist and nothing makes sense. He remembers taking his shoes off, his feet were sore from running in his new trainers, but when had he put them back on?
He becomes aware of a new voice, one of the older boys, saying little boy! Little boy! and then one of the others, telling his friend to leave Adam and get out of here.
There are more footsteps, the light of torches in the distance, cries of Peter? Adam? Jamie? and then, inexplicably, a wolf, like something out of one of his dad's fairytales, howling at Adam's feet, come to finish him off. Someone shines a torch on the wolf and he sees that it's a Garda dog, come to find him and his friends, but no less terrifying for its good intentions.
He has to be persuaded to let go of the tree. He knows that if he lets go time will start moving again and all this will somehow be real. He's taken to hospital and doesn't stop screaming until someone puts a needle in his arm to sedate him.
When he wakes up, his parents are at his bedside, pale and asking about Peter and Jamie, and all Adam remembers is the wolf.