“Still surprised she went for it?” Matt asked as he cycled next to Alan, a cool Spring breeze streaming over their faces.

  “Yeah.” Alan replied thoughtfully. He had expected more resistance from his wife, the thought of parting for what was a non-essential trip. Instead, she had enthusiastically embraced the idea. The girls would stay with her, to monitor Lara’s recovery and keep the cats’ guardian duties to a single house.

  Behind them Matty and Arlee rode in silence, keeping wary eyes peeled to either side, behind and overhead. Despite the feeling of renewed confidence the group had felt after the destruction of the rat nest, they were under no illusions that it was the only threat present in the area.

  In the weeks since that victory the group had discovered a number of other survivors. Clumps of the hardy, the capable, or those who had just got supremely lucky. Clustered together for strength in numbers and eking out an existence as best they could. A block of flats above a local convenience store, where one of the owners had connected with a group of large fridge units which kept a large supply of food fresh. A group of cottages surrounded by Victorian era walls with flourishing vegetable gardens of their own.

  These groups told familiar stories of fear and loss, but also of compassion and collaboration which events had made essential. Necessity had forced mankind – at least this small corner of it – to once again start building communities based on common interest and survival. Many families had lost a loved one, or were represented by a sole survivor from a harrowing couple of months since the Overlay had struck. Many of the survivors were children, hurriedly hidden when houses were attacked - protected with the blood of older siblings and parents.

  On the way to Wargrave, the group were stopping off at one such community. A group of houses well within the area invaded by the rat swarm. The surviving inhabitants had banded together to fortify a number of properties and repel the awful rodents. They had been scraping by, and were approaching desperation when some of their foragers ran into Matt and Alan on one of their exploratory patrols. Burning furniture for heat, light and protection. Down to scraps of food. The large pack of patches Arlee carried in her bag would stabilise their community and give them a foundation to build up from.

  The group pulled into the winding road, coming to a halt by a tightly packed wall of vehicles – tipped onto their sides to leave only a single narrow entrance. Visible ground floor windows were boarded over. Sentries standing behind the wall called out an alert, before the cries became those of welcome.

  “Matt! Alan! You came back! Great to see you!” A young man of mid-teenaged years yelled out in excitement. He leapt down and shortly after came running out the open gap, baseball bat in hand. Pausing momentarily, he called back to another sentry. “Quick, go let Mr King know that they’re back.”

  As the similarly aged sentry hurried off, and others looked on in curiosity and hope, the youngster ran up and stopped by the group as they dismounted.

  “We weren’t sure we’d see you again, how’s it going? We’ve been mostly fine here since you helped us with those wasps. We had a close call with one of the kites a few days back – it almost got Mrs Turner – but we saw it and got everyone inside just in time!”

  He looked ready to continue the verbal diarrhoea of recent history, but Matt managed to get a word in.

  “Good to see you too… Mick? It’s Mick, isn’t it?” He said, amused at the overly enthusiastic welcome. “Good news that you’re getting on well. We’re here to drop some things off to Rob…Mr King, then we’ve got to head off.”

  Mick’s face fell slightly. “You can’t stay for a bit? You promised you’d tell us about the battle with the rats.”

  Matt winced. “I know mate, but there’s important stuff to do and we don’t like to be away from home any longer than we have to. I promise you’ll get the story when the time is right, okay?”

  Mick brightened and opened his mouth to reply, but was beaten to it by another voice.

  “Now then Mick Draper, you let these fine folk get a word in edgeways and get back to your duty on the wall please.”

  A grey-haired man strode towards them, a sincere smile on his face as Mick battled his natural desire for stories, before nodding and jumping back up to his perch on the car wall. The new arrival put hands on his hips and shook his head ruefully.

  “That one hasn’t shut up about your last visit since you left. It’s a small fan club, but they all start that way.” Rob King was the appointed leader of this community, largely due to his long involvement in village events and clubs. He was an energetic man of maybe five decades and had kept a good number of his neighbours alive with his leadership since the Weirdness had started.

  Alan reached forward and shook the man’s hand in greeting. “Alright Rob, how’s things been around here?”

  “We’re getting by, thanks to you and Matt there. Those wasps you took care of would have been too much for us – golf clubs and cricket bats aren’t great against things that fly that fast. A close scrape with one of the kites – you can get Mick to give you all the details, I’m sure – but everyone accounted for.” He looked nervous, searching for his next words, before lowering his voice.

  “I don’t want to be pushy, but did you manage to bring the things you talked about last time? We’re nearly out of fuel, and the trek to get water is getting riskier. Frogs – of all things, can you believe it – turns out they’ve got a bit of a taste for larger prey than flies now. And that’s without trekking across the farm to the river and back, with those winged menaces flying around. The flamethrower tube you left us has been a lifesaver, let me tell you.”

  “We did.” Matt replied, as Arlee came forward with her bag. She smiled in greeting before pulling several plastic bags out in succession.

  “Hello Rob, nice to meet you.” She said. “Matt told us all about how well you’ve done here to keep your road safe. You must be very proud.” Without waiting for a reply, she started handing bags over.

  “I’ve labelled the bags, so you don’t get mixed up. There are patches for heat, water, cold and light – ten of each. And here…” She took another bag out. “…are the fire patches. Don’t give these to kids, or…” She looked archly at Matt for a second. “…adults with pyromaniac tendencies. I’ve also written down instructions for how to use them, where to put them and other ideas to get the most out of them.”

  Rob’s face was awestruck as the long-term survival of his friends, family and neighbours was literally handed to him in plastic bags. He clutched each like they were full of diamonds. “I… I don’t know that we have anything we can repay you with. I half-thought you were joking, even after seeing the things you could do with these whatchamacallits last time. I never thought…” He trailed off, eyes swimming with grateful tears. “Thank you, all of you. You let us know if we can do anything – anything at all, you hear?”

  Matt came forward and clapped him on the shoulder. “No problem, Rob. I might take you up on that sometime. If I think of anything, I’ll let you know.”

  Alan butted in. “You’ve got the flame tube we left you with last time – you can copy that to use the fire patches with. Just be bloody careful, okay? We almost burned our fence down testing those out for the first time. Like the lady said, don’t leave them where kids can get to them.”

  He turned to Matt. “We need to get going mate, plenty of stuff to do yet today.”

  As the group got back on their bikes, Mick called down to them.

  “Mr King! Tell them about what we heard the other night!”

  The group looked at Rob questioningly, and he shrugged before speaking. “Can’t say what it was, because it was night. But it was big, moving along the train tracks, down toward Wargrave. Sounded human-shaped, but much bigger – heavier – and…” He cleared his throat before continuing. “…it seemed to be talking. Maybe to itself, maybe to something else – we couldn’t make out what it was saying. But there was the odd word that was clear – ‘food’, ‘home’, I think were a couple of them. If you’re headed that way anytime, you watch your step, you hear?”

  They assured him they would, thanking him for the warning and giving Mick a thumbs up before continuing their journey.

  Carry walked into the bedroom where Lara lay, a cool towel covering her eyes. After a difficult night’s sleep, she had been in the darkest room of the house, in between brief periods of getting acclimatised to the increased efficacy of her sight.

  “Time for another go, love.” Carry said gently.

  “I don’t want to - it’s just going to make my head hurt again.” Lara replied in what was nearly a whine.

  Carry’s voice became more serious, not wanting to foster a defeatist attitude. “And it will carry on hurting until your body gets used to it. You’ve had the break we agreed on, now it’s time to try again.”

  “But I…”

  “No buts!” Carry interrupted. “I’ve seen people with far more serious injuries than this, Lara. It’s always easier to not try, to let it go, but it doesn’t do you any good. The more you push yourself to get better, the sooner you’ll be back with your friends. Getting up to more mischief, no doubt.”

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  Lara grumbled but sat up and turned to face the wall. Removing the towel across her eyes, she gingerly opened them, cupping hands around them to limit her field of vision.

  Carry was prepared this time, so gave no overt sign of her worry. She had seen the tiny flecks of gold in Lara’s eyes - in one of the previous sessions to temper the overwhelming input that the girl was experiencing. In the darkness of the room, she could clearly see the faint golden glow illuminating Lara’s hands.

  How is that happening? She wondered, racking her brain for any recollection of a similar symptom. The closest she could think of was the bioluminescence exhibited by some fish in the deep oceans, but never had she heard of a human generating light.

  We’re into a whole new territory of human physiology. What changes are yet to come?

  “That’s good love, tell me what you see.”

  “The paint on the wall is all bumpy, like a never-ending mountain range in all directions. My skin has lots of lines in it, some deep ones as well as shallow ones everywhere.”

  Carry twitched the curtains, letting the darkness brighten slightly. “And now?”

  “It’s…it’s alright! I think. My head doesn’t hurt yet anyway.” There was a cautious hope to Lara’s voice.

  Carry let a narrow opening split the curtains, careful to have the light not spill directly over her patient. “And how is that?”

  “It’s still okay. I… I’m sorry. I think you were right, Auntie Carry. I need to try harder. I just don’t want it to hurt again.”

  Carry sat down next to the girl. “I know love, I know. Pain is never nice, and new things can be hard to get used to. But it’s important to not to run away from challenges like this, to not put them off. We have to deal with them before they seem too big to ever beat. I’m proud of you though, you’ve done well. Try to stay with the light like this for a while longer. If your head starts to hurt again, you can cover your eyes and take a break – but try to see how long you can cope with this.”

  She rose and moved to the door. “I’ll come back and check on you in a while, with some lunch.”

  Downstairs, Kira looked up from lavishing attention on Nala as Carry joined her in the living room. The large feline regarded her previous owner with impassive eyes, until Carry capitulated and joined in with the devotion to feline petting.

  “How is La doing?” Kira asked quietly. She felt some anxiety over her part in Lara’s condition.

  “She will be fine love.” Carry replied, stroking Nala’s long back slowly. “It will just take time for her to get used to it. I’m really quite interested in how her sight has changed once she has acclimatised.”

  “That’s good.” Kira replied, seeming distracted.

  “What’s the matter love?” Carry asked. “Something on your mind?”

  Kira’s expression was thoughtful for a few moments before she responded. “I’ve been reading a lot, trying to find out anything that can help us be safer. I thought I was helping La and Oswald, but now with her eyes like this, I… I don’t know if I should do anything like this again. I don’t want to find to find out things that might hurt people.”

  Carry wiggled around to sit next to her subdued goddaughter, wrapping a comforting arm around her. She considered her words before replying.

  “It’s easy to pay extra attention to the things that go wrong Kira, instead of balancing those things against the ones which are good, and helpful. Yes, this didn’t go exactly according to plan, but I don’t think there will be any long-term ill effects, and it might end up being very useful if Lara can learn to use her new sight well.”

  “Don’t get me wrong – you absolutely should have told your parents before trying this. It was reckless and na?ve – those are the things parents are usually pretty good at helping you recognise and prepare for – before you jump straight into them. That being said, you’ve earned a lot of respect from the group with your research, and we will listen to you when you tell us something. So talk to us, okay? Before trying anything else, please?”

  “I will Aunty Carry, I promise.”

  “Good girl.” Carry folded her into a hug. “We’re very proud of you, I hope you know that.”

  Kira nodded, before turning nervous. “Sooooo, there is something I want to tell you, about my book and something I need to do….”

  “I don’t like the look of that.” Matty said as the group crouched in the cover of some bushes. “What the hell made them – more rats?”

  There was no response from the others, all just as mystified as they looked out over the playing fields of the local secondary school. Large mounds of earth dotted the football pitches, each several feet high of tumbled earth mixed with the local chalk.

  Of more concern was the faint, but distinct rumble that seemed to be ever-present. In the past it would have been attributed to traffic, or farm equipment. But now there was no mechanical explanation, and the range of biological possibilities were unknown.

  The foliage masking their presence ran along a side road, large houses standing silent behind impressive-looking gateways. Unusually, there was evidence of structural damage here and there. Voids in various walls with piles of tumbled brickwork scattered around.

  “Could it be something underground? Those walls look collapsed, like sappers tunnelling under old castles.” Matt mused, half to himself.

  “Doesn’t matter, we’re not here for this, so let’s not get sidetracked.” Alan spoke up, refocusing the group. “We can investigate this another time. Right now, let’s get on with what we came out here for. We can walk the bikes along the hedgerow to stay in cover, then join back with the main road when the hedge ends.”

  Following Alan’s lead, the group pushed their bikes awkwardly along beside the thick bushes. A bountiful array of blackberries would have been a tempting harvest at another time, but they were on edge with the rumble still audible. The collapsed walls in some of the houses they had passed also gave a testament of unknown peril.

  “What was that?” Arlee said suddenly, pointing back toward a patch of ground they had passed over in their stealthy progress.

  “What did you see?” Matty asked, as the others strained their senses.

  “I just caught it out of the corner of my eye, like the earth bulged and then fell back.” Arlee replied, a nervous twang to her voice. “I don’t like this Matt. It feels like we’re being followed.”

  “Yeah, I think maybe we…” Matt started, but never got a chance to finish.

  The rumbling sound suddenly peaked, directly around and underneath them. Earth sprayed up in great clods and the ground burst in their midst. The group tumbled away from each other, sprawling alongside their bikes. Giant, pink-skinned paws, sporting wickedly pointed claws reached out of the ground. They spread and clamped down, hauling a wheelbarrow-sized head and the start of a massive, mud-caked, brown-furred body into the daylight.

  Matt was as surprised as the rest at the sudden attack, but his thoughts quickly ordered themselves into a course of action. This must be the ‘mental clarity’ Kira read about when she was researching attunements, he thought. As a shark-like maw gaped wide and reared over Alan’s prone form, he grabbed the flame-tube from his belt and shot a plume of fire directly into the ghastly visage.

  To his surprise, this only served to make the beast flinch back. Some steam arose, but the mud clinging to skin and fur seemed to insulate it from the worst of the fire. With a speed belying its great size, the giant mole twisted away to protect its more tender mouth. Matt noted with a sense of detached interest that there were no obvious eyes.

  Alan took advantage of the temporary reprieve to scramble out of the range of both tooth and claw, jumping back to his feet and setting himself in case of pursuit. These preparations were in vain though. As quickly as it had appeared, the muddy form swiftly disappeared back into the ground, leaving a dark burrow behind it.

  “Get the bikes onto the road now!” Yelled Matty, carrying one in each hand as he ran over the uneven roadside and onto the asphalt. Even as the group followed him, the ground burst open once again, showering their backs in more muck as they fled. As if disappointed by the double failure of its ambush, the gigantic mole gave a strange, warbling cry. With that it sank back into the earth, as similar cries echoed back from within the school grounds.

  Making it to the road, the group wasted no time in distancing themselves from the site of the mole’s ambush. Pedalling frantically, the quarter mile to the edge of the village still seemed to take forever. They cast fearful glances around as they rode, willing the line of buildings to come closer. At last, they entered the village and took shelter in a secluded forecourt in front of a large, white-walled house.

  “All good?” Matt said through heaving breaths. Around him, the group recovered after their frantic escape, nodding wordlessly to his question. After a few minutes they had settled their heartrates and breathing, looking up and down the road for any threats.

  “We need to warn Rob and his bunch about the colony of massive, tunnelling, ambushing pricks – they’re not too far away.” Alan muttered, before turning to Matt. “Nice save with the fire, thanks mate.”

  “It didn’t do much, just baked some of the soil clinging to it.” Matt noted. “We’ll need another game plan if we ever come up against those things again.”

  “It did enough.” Alan replied simply, nodding his appreciation. Good friends before the world had gone to Hell, the bond between the two had only grown as they worked together to defend their families. There were only so many life and death situations you could experience with someone before accepting that they were best kind of person to be around.

  “The church is just round the corner, let’s get there quickly and see if his Wizardliness was right.” Arlee said, pulling herself up from the porch step she had rested on.

  A few minutes later, the group turned down a side road leading to the local station. Huge horse chestnut trees lined the road, thick with large leaves and ripe with possibilities for concealment and ambush. Thankfully, the group’s vigilance - which was now second nature - was undisturbed. Turning off the road, they made a cautious approach into the large open green in front of the church. A stone memorial to local residents who had died in the First and Second World Wars stood next to the road. Matt mused for a moment that the many names chiselled into the weathered stone would likely be eclipsed by the village’s casualties from more recent, unnatural events.

  Matt paused as they stopped outside a small arched gateway. An unbroken wall ran along the edge of the small graveyard surrounding the church building, traditional bricks and flint making up the solid construction. Here and there, raking scratches could be seen marring the surface of the mortar and brickwork, but there were no other immediate signs of hostility or danger. There was something teasing the edge of his senses – a feeling that felt just out of comprehension…

  He snapped out of his focus as Arlee slipped a hand into his, leaning against his shoulder, looking up into his eyes with a smile.

  “I still remember everything about our wedding day. I was so nervous all the way up to the door, but the moment they opened and I saw you standing there, I knew how right it was.” She stood on tiptoes to kiss his cheek as he smiled.

  Matt remembered the day vividly as well. The crowd of smiling friends and family. The love with which vows were exchanged. The strange twitch in his cheek as face muscles seized up from too much smiling for photos….

  But most of all, he recalled the vision of Arlee walking down the aisle toward him. Spring sun streaming through the stained glass to bathe her in radiance. The smile of joy as the vicar confirmed their joining, and the press of her body on his as they took their first dance.

  “Alright lovebirds, you can stand around mooning over each other when we’re inside and away from whatever wildlife wants to take a chunk from us today.” Alan snapped them both back to reality, and they laughed guiltily. Moving swiftly through the graveyard, they paused before the great oak door, listening carefully.

  “There’s someone in there.” Matty confirmed. “I can’t make anything out, but it sounds like a small group at least.”

  “Go in carefully, let’s not start anything we don’t have to.” Matt urged, getting a nod from the others. Matty took hold of the heavy handle and pushed the thick portal open.

  Moving inside, the group were amazed at the pinpricks of dozens of candles bringing light to all corners of the cavernous interior. Polished wood beams supported a high, vaulted ceiling. Cushioned pews lined the floor leading up toward the altar. Many of these contained quietly speaking people, who now turned toward the new arrivals.

  As the groups mutely observed each other, the silence was broken by a clear voice.

  “Welcome friends! Be at ease in this house of the Lord!”