Justine had heard enough. The two were trouble, clearly off their heads. She turned to run, knowing that there was a way out at the other end of the ducting, but as she turned, her foot caught on the hem of her blanket and she crashed heavily to the floor.

Immediately the two figures pounced, gripping Justine’s arms and legs. With a scream of rage, Justine kicked out, her heel catching one of her assailants on the side of the head and sending him sprawling.

Snarling with anger, the other pinned her to the floor. Justine gave a gasp of horror. Beneath the hood there was something terribly wrong with her attacker’s face. The eyes were big and dark, the features misshapen.

With a hiss, the thing opened its mouth, baring teeth like rotten spikes. A vile animal spray splattered onto Justine’s face. She groaned, revolted. The smell was overpowering.

As blackness engulfed her, all she could hear was the chittering of rats …

Part One

2020

CHAPTER ONE

Dorothy McShane jolted from her sleep, lashing out at the creature that was reaching for her. But there was no creature. She was alone in her bedroom, her attacker nothing but a phantom from a nightmare.

With a groan, she slumped back onto the bed, the sheets rumpled, her arms and forehead slick with sweat. She closed her eyes again and lay motionless in the cool dark for a moment, trying to control her breathing and slow her heart rate. It had been the same story every night this week. The same nightmare, the same moment of sudden awakening, the same conviction that she was fighting for her life.

It was becoming tiresome.

As with all the previous occasions, she tried to recall the exact events of her nightmare, hoping that some remembered detail might provide a pointer to what might be triggering these dreams.

They always began in exactly the same way: feeling herself being drawn out of her body, watching her sleeping self recede into the distance as she rose higher and higher until she was floating far above the city, looking down on the patchwork of roads and buildings, lights blazing into the night. Then things tended to kick up a gear and she found herself moving faster, gaining altitude until London was no more than a smudge of light below her. Soon the planet itself was revealed – a globe of brilliant blue against the blackness, before that too receded, and she was flying through nothing but stars and blackness.

Dorothy always enjoyed this bit – she’d always enjoyed the sensation of speed. Bikes, cars, planes; she couldn’t get enough of them …

As dreams went, there was little that was unusual so far; dreams of leaving the physical form behind and of flying were common enough. Indeed, given her own past history, it might also be considered inevitable that she would have dreams of this type, but it was what happened next that was troubling her.