The inhabitants which lived in harmony with nature stiffened, senses casting out in trepidation at the approaching danger. There was no definable source for this feeling, but all around the world, those who lived around, apart from and despite humans scurried, soared or crept to their places of safety and hid. Meanwhile, the bipeds who considered themselves masters of the planet carried on oblivious…

  The pressure was increasing – deep burrows, hidden nests and concealed caves providing no succour from the harbinger of approaching change. Whiskers quivered, fins swayed desperately and teeth were bared…

  The crushing feeling had passed, and noses poked out of burrows to taste the air. The sense of danger had passed…but there was something new. Something powerful. The world around was changing somehow…

  Matt awoke with a start, goosebumps running down his arms. Next to him, Arlee still slept, breathing undisturbed as he rolled over and levered himself to a sitting position, his senses slowly getting back to normal.

  Testing the bedside lamp, he found that the power had not yet been restored. Earlier in the day, he and others in the road had complained about the power and mobile networks gradually fading to nothingness. The mock terror of being in the house with a pre-teen without Wi-Fi had prompted him to dig out an old encyclopaedia, to assist with some of his daughter’s homework research. He had settled down to practice weaving – a hobby which was finally resulting in what could charitably be called ‘cloth’.

  The event – or ‘The Weirdness’ as he had come to think of it – had been preceded by days of increasingly serious reports of star constellations being out of place, electronics becoming less reliable and scattered reports of animals acting strangely – dangerously even. It had eventually culminated in a feeling of pressure that had caused everyone he had seen since to black out.

  With the complete failure of communications and any electronic device at the same time, it was as if a wave of some force had crashed down to earth. He hadn’t seen any evidence of physical impact yet, but they – and apparently all the animals – had felt it, nonetheless. He wasn’t critically concerned yet – these things generally had an explanation – and his practical mindset had him just dealing with it and carrying on as best possible.

  Picking up a torch from his bedside by habit, he moved to the window, fumbling with something tangled in the wrist loop. He vaguely remembered the rough patch of cloth he had woven on his small hobby loom in the last rays of sunlight. He clasped it in in his free hand so as not to lose it in the darkness.

  Raising the blind, he looked out over the back yards and gardens of the neighbourhood, the usual collection of porch lights seeming strange in their absence. The night was clear, and a bright moon shone down, giving some illumination and casting great shadows.

  Although the normal sounds of distant traffic were absent there was a whisper of sound in the night sky. It wasn’t quite clear enough to make out, but something about it made the hair on the back of his neck rise. As he scanned the small garden behind the house, movement caught his eye. In the deep shadow between the fence and row of fir trees that formed the rear border of their property, something had jostled a trunk of one of the tall trees with enough force to shake the whole twelve-foot height.

  Burglars weren’t unknown in the area, but in the few instances he had heard about, they tended to be more taking advantage of open windows and unlocked doors during the day, rather than full breaking and entering in the middle of the night. He was about to call to Arlee when his heart skipped a beat, as a large form moved out from under the trees, out onto the moonlit lawn.

  This was no human skulker. Although still not illuminated enough to make out detail, it was the same size as a large dog, but bulkier. A pair of red eyes seemed to glow faintly, and Matt hunched down quickly to avoid being noticed. It crept, slowly and stealthily along the tree border, casting its head around as if to capture a scent. As Matt watched, frozen, it released a chittering sound, which was answered quickly from numerous places between their house and the row from the next street over, separated by the gardens of each and various access passages.

  As this sound rose over the neighbourhood, more recognisable barks from local dogs sounded, as they challenged invaders of their homes. This was the catalyst for all hell to break loose, the night air erupting with the awful chittering sound, drowning out the growls of pets. The growls were swiftly turned to whines and canine wails, accompanied by more grisly noises, which Matt had only heard in movies and nightmares.

  As the first questioning voices were heard from neighbouring houses, he shook off his paralysis and yelled as loudly as he could.

  “WAKE UP! DANGER! DANGER! DANGEROUS ANIMALS IN THE GARDENS! WAKE UP!”

  His booming voice, well-practiced from decades on sports fields, echoed around the area. A loud shriek behind him signalled Arlee’s rude awakening, but her mumbled enquiries were drowned out by the escalating violence outside. The sounds of splintering wood and smashing glass were followed by screams and yells, and Matt lowered his gaze to the intruder in their garden. Its red eyes stared right back, and moonlight glinted from cruel, pointed teeth, as it made its way toward the house.

  Matt slammed the window and whirled around, toward where Arlee sat in confusion. She shrieked again as Matt dashed around the bed, grabbed her by the arms and pulled her out of the room.

  “Matt! What are you doing? What’s wro…”

  “There’s some swarm of big animals in the neighbourhood – get into Kira’s room, get her up and barricade the door – now!” He pushed his wife toward their daughter’s room and spun toward the stairs. Fumbling with the torch and cloth he had picked up on waking, he swore as the black metal rod completely failed to give off any light.

  Arlee grabbed his arm as he turned, a vice-like grip which brought him back to face her. Gripping his face with both hands, the steel in her voice was undermined by the trembling fingers upon his skin.

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  “Stay safe Matt, and no heroics. Block things up as much as you can and get back up here to us. We can wait it out together.”

  With this, she planted a kiss on his lips and released him, turning back toward their daughter’s room. Matt picked his way carefully down the stairs, hearing Arlee rush into the next bedroom, the door slamming shut behind her. Reaching the ground floor, he was re-assured that his family weas hopefully safe, the sound of moving furniture and his daughter’s sleepy questions muffled through the closed door.

  They were his life, a source and focus for a love and devotion he had not previously known possible. He had occasionally dreamt or fantasised about being a hero for them, protecting them from some awful threat. Now thrust into that precise situation, he found himself wishing that life could just be ordinary again. The dread of what he might face in the darkness threatened to overwhelm him, but the thought of the threat to the others stiffened his spine and he continued toward the back of the house.

  Remembering the rough patch in his grip, he went to slip it into the pocket of his shorts. As it touched the cloth, a sensation passed between his hand and hip, before a soft glow started to expand from where the patch he had been working on had somehow bonded itself to his shorts. As Matt stumbled to a shocked halt the light grew into a steady radiance, lighting up the hallway. He stared dumbfounded at the impossible happening in front of his eyes.

  A loud crack brought him back to his senses, a feeling of dread taking over from the burst of initial adrenaline. Entering the kitchen a shower of glass fragments pattered against his skin, thankfully missing his eyes. Blood dripped from minor cuts, but this luck was eclipsed by the monstrosity violently squirming its way through the shattered French doors.

  In the steady glow of his shorts, the horrific creature was much more familiar, more terrifying. Matted grey fur, streaked with blood and open wounds, covered a bulky, swollen rodent body. The rats that were occasionally seen running between gardens and under fences were sleek, agile creatures, but this was something else entirely. The proportions were wrong, bulky muscle that would have seemed comically fat were it not for the comic-book glowing red eyes and pointed fangs dripping with noxious saliva.

  All these details crossed Matt’s mind in a heartbeat, before the monster lunged forward, uncaringly ripping its body from the bloody glass shards remaining in the doorway. In a panic he flailed wildly with the torch, smashing it down onto the approaching head, knocking it away and to the side. In a moment of clarity amid the panic he thanked the universe in general for the unexplained and miraculous radiance bathing the room in soft light. A life and death struggle in the dark would be over quickly, and not in his favour.

  Recovering almost instantly, the rodent span back and lunged again, claws scratching loudly as it struggled to get a solid grip on the shiny floor. He thrust the torch forward and missed his target, the shiny black rod disappearing half-way into the beast’s chittering maw. Releasing it and pulling his hand back from the gnashing teeth, he looked around for anything else to use as a weapon, or shield, or…..something!

  “Don’t get bitten. Don’t get bitten.” He muttered between heaving breaths, as the intruder backed off, gagging around the metal lodged in its throat. Rats were famed for the strength and sharpness of their bites, and any incapacitating wound would likely be his last, leaving his wife and daughter by themselves against any other intruders. He grabbed a chair and held it out in front of him, hoping to maybe be able to shepherd the rat back outside, but this hope was dashed as it gave up trying to dislodge his torch and sprang forward once more, wedging itself between the chair legs as it strained forward, those horrible teeth slicing the air as he desperately swung his head away.

  Matt struggled to keep his arms locked out, backed up against one of the kitchen counters. Only the chair backrest jammed up against the surface kept the seemingly crazed beast at bay, the swollen musculature driving through his attempts to push it away. As the chair started to creak and splinter, he desperately reached behind himself to where the knife block stood by the oven.

  Grabbing the handles he struggled for a moment to get a solid grip, as the rat twisted one leg free and raked its claws down his lone braced arm. Matt yelled in pain, but brought his other arm over and down, stabbing manically at the twisting form. Again and again the blade plunged down, a warm splash over his hand, chest and face with each blow. The nightmare scene made worse by the blood now soaking his shorts, the light taking on a sickly red hue, shadows jumping as the pair struggled against each other.

  Matt’s arm grew heavy, but he mechanically kept stabbing. He felt the pressure against the chair weaken, the struggles fading. The monster’s menacing chittering became more gurgling, the fetid breath that had enveloped him during their struggle, now a feeble wheeze as the beast sank down to its haunches, collapsing to the side. The blood-matted fur heaved one last time, and with a rattle it lay still.

  Numbly Matt looked down, body locked in place, lungs heaving like the end of the worst pre-season training session. His eyes were locked on the butchered carcass at his feet, blood pooling, steaming gently as the cool night air filtered in through the smashed doorway. Slowly his brain started to function again, realising the danger they were in if another of the beasts made its way inside. He was spent; another fight would end fast and badly.

  Wiping blood and sweat from his face, one hand still vice-like around the knife handle, he moved slightly to point the light more fully toward the corpse. Even in death it gave off a sense of menace, the unnatural size and sheer impossibility of its existence making a mockery of reality. Matt had been an enthusiastic gamer through most of his life, but the giant rats that had been minor speedbumps in various games did not contribute anything like the sense of mortality that now overtook him.

  He had been lucky, he realised as the extent of the damage the rat had taken smashing through the glass door became clearer in the steadying light. Great slices were cut into its flanks and legs, and the kitchen floor was awash with pools of hot blood. Against these awful wounds, the many small punctures of his wild stabs seemed trivial, but the damage had added up.

  As the immediate chaos stilled, he started once again to hear the screams, shouts and terrible, rending sounds from nearby properties, as other residents fought back, or were overrun by the attackers. His ragged, heaving breaths gradually slowed, the pounding heartbeat starting to decline from the peak it had reached, struggling to keep him going through the combat. He knew that a crash was coming, and the breached back door needed to be secured before that happened. His instinct was to help others, who were so clearly in need, but common sense prevailed.

  Dropping the gore-caked breadknife to the floor, summoning the dregs of his energy, Matt dragged the rat by the tail, struggling to roll the dead weight through the broken doorway. His arms and legs shook as the solid kitchen table was upended against the opening. Piling the remaining chairs behind it before collapsing down, his back against the makeshift barricade, his mind raced through the struggle.

  What had happened? Animal attacks were a thing, but usually resulted from the human assumption that they understood something they didn’t. Or were totally oblivious about. Apart from the odd report of a family pet or starving fox turning on a person, the UK was blessedly free of almost any kind of animal threat. The sounds filtering through his makeshift barricade from the surrounding houses told a different – and horrifying – story.

  Looking down, he gazed in stupefied wonder at the glowing patch of rough cloth that was somehow stuck to his boxer shorts. He had no doubt that it was the single biggest contributor to his survival, but had no explanation for why or how. He remembered the last rays of sunlight playing around his fingers as he wound the thread around his loom. This picture faded from his mind as the last adrenaline left his body and everything went dark.