Maggie’s smile was as warm as the sun. She liked it when he called her Mummy, which was why he said it today. ‘No, baby, you didn’t. I’m fine. What happened last night?’

‘I remember feeling scared,’ he said in a small voice. ‘You brought me back to bed.’ Elliott wished that was all it was. He was so jealous of normal kids with normal lives and normal nightmares. Why did he have to be this way? He used to use up all his birthday and Christmas wishes asking for the dreams to be taken away, but he had given that up now.

His mother looked at him sorrowfully, her blonde lashes fluttering as she drew him close. ‘How about I make us sausages, peas and mash? I’ll do the gravy nice and thick.’

Elliott nodded enthusiastically, not because he was hungry, but because if Maggie hugged him for much longer he was scared he would cry. He rubbed a thumb over the medal. It had never been this bad in the day before. The Midnight Man was all around him, and in a few hours Elliott would have to go back to bed. Every night he tried to stay awake, but it never worked.

Maggie was in the kitchen, boiling the kettle and rattling saucepans when a sudden flash from last night’s dreams invaded his mind. Frozen with fear, Elliott clutched his father’s medal as the violence replayed on a horror carousel. The stinky smell of damp clothing, thick and heavy as it was pulled on. Voices in the dark. Flapping. Panting. Running through the trees. Elliott gripped the medal tightly, his breath coming fast as the darkness came alive. Cold. It was so cold: the breeze was watering his eyes and reddening his skin.

A deep, scary voice. An icy blade pressed against warm skin. The purple-blue vein in her neck. A low growl. Thick knuckles against an ivory handle. The angel’s fear because she knew this was the end. Blonde hair splashed with red. A gargling, bubbling cry. The angel is dead. But the Midnight Man still comes.