I found myself in a wilderness. All I could see were acres of flat, featureless land. No towns or villages, no sign of civilisation, no pylons from which power lines would track their way across country. From somewhere behind me I could hear the sigh of the sea rushing to shore.

There was a house; so large it dominated the landscape. All around it were fine gardens and high walls to protect its privacy. The house did not want the world to know it was here. A grand house, built of redbrick, with a high, pitched roof from which projected several chimneystacks. Large windows, supported by sandstone lintels, looked out over the desolate landscape. No light came from within. It stood dark, silent, authoritarian, forbidding. The doors were open as if daring me to cross the threshold. I felt no fear. I knew I needed to go to that house. There was something I wanted and it was in there.

I looked up a broad staircase. There were other rooms along the ground floor, but what I wanted was upstairs. The plaster walls were bare and unadorned but for a case clock inside the main doors. The hands on the clock read five to twelve.

Five to midnight. The Doomsday clock, that measure of the human race’s proximity to total annihilation, had been reset to five minutes to midnight , where midnight signalled our catastrophic destruction , in 2007, when the danger of climatic changes and other factors, all stemming from technological advances, were included in the equation.

I climbed the stairs. The place had an air of decay about it. A fusty odour of damp and disuse; as if it no one had lived here or even visited in a long time.

I stood in the bedroom. Jan was climbing out of bed. She wore only a white slip, so transparent that it showed her nipples and the dark thatch between her thighs. Her auburn hair was perfect. Lust pounded through my veins. I moved towards her. She warned me off with a stern glance.

Colonel Pistol stood in the doorway. He looked older than usual. His hair was grey, his hands gnarled and beaten. On his shoulder was the single crown insignia of a major. He turned to leave and held out his right hand for Jan.

She took it and they left me engulfed in waves of impotent envy mingled with disappointment.

We stood outside at the front of the house, its high walls closing out the world. Sunlight poured from a clear sky. Colonel Pistol had his back to me. His hair was black again. This was the Colonel Pistol I knew. Jan faced him, her back to the house.

Colonel Pistol drew his revolver. ‘You have been found guilty of high treason,’ he said. ‘You are sentenced to death by pistol shot. Do you have anything to say before I carry out the sentence?’

Alarm shocked through me.

Egghead appeared on her shoulder. Jan smiled longingly at him. He bit through the thin straps of her slip and let it fall, exposing her naked body. Her smile invited and her eyes blazed. Brian Richmond took the revolver from Colonel Pistol , stepped towards her and cocked it. Slowly, he squeezed the trigger …

I woke. For a moment I was disoriented. My eyes became accustomed to the darkness. Looking over Jan’s shoulder, I froze.

They were there. Colonel Pistol stood at her side of the bed, looming over her, Brian Richmond ranged alongside him and at the bottom of the divan, watching, baring his evil teeth, was Egghead.

****

I didn’t move, didn’t breathe. Paralysed, I listened for the sound of my heart beating. I could not hear it but I could feel it; thump-a-thump-a-thump-a; hammering against my ribs.

Tinnitus sang in my ears and way beneath it was the mutter of the Voices. But there was a different quality about them now. I could imagine my neighbours sat in front of the TV with the volume turned up, but they were no longer listening to the BBC news; more like a late night chat show. The tone was lighter, more excited, more anticipatory.

Alongside me, Jan slept on. She lay on her left side, facing the window, her back to me, left arm curled up, her hand under the pillow. I had my arm around her, cupping her breast, and her right hand held mine.

Silhouetted in the dim light breaking through the curtains I could make out Colonel Pistol’s close-cropped, neatly combed, dark hair, but I couldn’t see his face. His was a lean body, without a trace of a paunch beneath the army pullover. My eyes were transfixed by the ugly butt of his gun projecting from his hip.

At the bottom of the bed, Egghead watched with interest. Paradoxically, his appearance was less startling than Colonel Pistol’s. Evil he might be, but Egghead was not armed.

I don’t know how long I lay there, looking from one to the other. I don’t know how long Colonel Pistol stood there without moving. I felt feel the fear of an intruder in our house, in our bedroom, armed and ready to kill my wife.

Brian stood in the background. His lopsided, gormless grin told me he was enjoying it.

Colonel Pistol looked across at me. I still couldn’t see his face, but I was sure that he would spot my open eyes reflecting the same night illumination that kept him in silhouette. I felt him smile at me. A vicious, evil twist of his mouth that told me he was going to shoot my wife, he would enjoy doing it and he didn’t care that I was watching.

Petra had insisted that they were a part of my mind. Notwithstanding all evidence to the contrary, they had to be an extension of my psyche. I would use my mind to be rid of them.

Mentally, I ordered them to go away, leave us alone. Nothing happened. Petra was wrong. I lay there transfixed, my mind filled with the dream. I could not stop Colonel Pistol then, how could I stop him now?

The nightmare vision of Zoë falling to her death, of Egghead pressing her to jump, swam into my mind and with it came understanding. I had been terrified that I was next. But it wasn’t me. It was Jan. They were going to execute her. Take her from me. Jan was my world. Without her, my life would be worth zip.

A movement to my right distracted me. Jenny entered the bedroom. Like Jan in the dream, she was naked. She shrugged at the others. An apology. No sound passed between them. It was understood and acceptable.

Colonel Pistol looked down at Jan, then across at me, then back to Jan. I saw the movement of his hand, unclipping the holster. Egghead crouched on the end of the bed, watching, waiting, Brian and Jenny watched with rapt fascination.

I sent signals to my muscles, ordering them to action: throw off the duvet, leap over the bed, flatten them both. Nothing happened other than my heart began beating even faster. It was as if the paralysis, which had gripped me since I first woke, had consolidated its hold on me.

Colonel Pistol pulled the weapon, and broke it, checking that the six chambers were loaded. Snapping it shut, he drew back the hammer, and aimed it at her temple. In a second he would spread her brains everywhere, exactly as he had been about to do in the dream. Only this time, she was not aware of him, and I was damn sure she wouldn’t be so passionate.

I sent more conscious orders to my muscles, commanding them to action. Still nothing happened. Egghead’s grin widened and his shark teeth showed. Neither Jenny nor Brian blinked. All I could do was lie there and watch them about to carry out some incomprehensible death sentence.

Colonel Pistol pressed the cold barrel to Jan’s head.

The spell broke. A rush of adrenaline flooded through me. Above was the lazy cord for the light. I released Jan’s breast, reached up and snapped the light on, then threw myself across her, reaching for Colonel Pistol’s hand, every muscle, every fibre in my body stinging with energy, ready to take this monster apart. At the same time, from beneath the blanket, I kicked at Egghead.

Jan woke. Her eyes wide, startled, terrified. ‘What the hell … Chris, what are you doing?’

Reaching out to protect her, that’s what I was doing. Stopping them killing her.

But with light flooding the room, they were gone and I found myself laid across my wife, snatching at thin air.