The evening had a celebratory air, as the two families marvelled at the wonder of the magical achievement. It felt like everyone had been avoiding the M-word, but now there was evidence right in front of their faces, it could not be denied any more. Matt had prepared two more patches from the ice, placing one inside the cool box to preserve the remaining ice, saving the other for their own fridge.

  The near-miraculous recovery that Matt had experienced after Carry’s care was certainly a more significant immediate impact. Indeed, Matt would be overjoyed to find out upon waking the next morning that his ankle - although sore - was almost fully back to normal. But both these healings were an acceleration of a known and common feature of human physiology. It felt more familiar and less mystical.

  Alan’s jokey label of ‘Matty Potter’ had definitely stuck, and the group enjoyed dinner before settling in for another crowded night’s sleep. Once again, the feline forms could be seen sitting guard at front and back windows, or watching Kira with unblinking eyes

  The night was anything but undisturbed though, as once again sounds of struggle and anguish could be heard faintly on the night air. Kira huddled next to Nala, tears on her cheeks and hands clasped over her ears trying to block out the sounds. The adults looked at each other, faces pale as each new scream echoed from afar, and they held each other tightly.

  Once, they heard a terrific yowling in the back garden and had jumped to the windows, straining to see what was happening. Struggling dark forms could be vaguely seen darting back and forth, before one was born to the ground, emitting a strangled yipping sound before being silenced and falling still.

  Carry and Kira had been beside themselves with worry, until Dragon and Lion had emerged from the shadows in the kitchen, sitting down to clean their paws and fur, none seeming worse for the battle. There was no sign of their foe in the morning, besides an overturned barrel, tufts of a thick reddish fur and a mass of overlapping paw prints and scratch marks in the turf, only some of which belonged to the cats.

  Rising late and groggily from the interrupted night’s rest, the morning started slowly with many hugs of reassurance. During a swift breakfast, the group discovered that at some point in the night the patches in the fridge and cool box had stopped emanating the cold light and were dormant, though enough residual chill remained to keep the fridge contents fresh. Matt reached in to retrieve one and as his fingers touched the rough woven surface, the glowing waves of cool air restarted. Evidently, the magic was not permanently active, and he resolved to try and time how long the patches would work for.

  After eating and discussing plans for the day, Arlee, Matt and Alan had cautiously returned to the Tappers’ house over the road, leaving Carry tidying up the house, and Kira with her nose firmly lodged in her book. Any misgiving about ‘splitting the party’ was mitigated by the black-furred forms prowling around the house, sitting sentry by the windows.

  Matt took the lead into their house, hammer gripped tightly. No sound could be heard inside, and a check of the doors and windows revealed no signs of intrusion.

  “Well, this is going to take some elbow grease.”

  Arlee looked around her kitchen, as Alan and Matt started disassembling the makeshift barricade which blocked the jagged, bloody-stained hole in the back door. Dried pools of blood still stained the floor, the broken glass had been swept aside as the group entered the room. Shuddering at the thought of the struggle her husband had been through, Arlee sighed and started gathering cleaning products from the various cupboards.

  “Let’s pile the chairs over on the table out of the way, then we can see about blocking up that hole.” Matt said to Alan as they worked. As they cleared the blockade and opened the blinds on the kitchen windows, they got the first glimpse of the back garden in daylight since the crazy Event had begun, two days previously.

  There was a large, splintered hole in the back fence, presumably where the rodent intruder had broken through, before breaking through the back door. Behind the back fence were the gardens of houses on the next road over. Although not an everyday sight, they had seen regular rats running along the fence line on several previous occasions.

  Matt paused in thought. Remembering what he had researched before calling exterminators to deal with a rat’s nest at a previous address. He turned to Alan with a worried expression and spoke quietly.

  “You know Al, those rat things probably have a nest close by, maybe more than one. There were a load of them moving around that first night, and there was so much chaos, there must have been lots more that we didn’t see.” He took a breath before continuing. “Rats breed fast, and the last thing we want is waves of those things coming back every time there’s a new litter of young rats.”

  Alan nodded. “I’ve been thinking the same mate. I’m sure we’re not the only ones who managed to survive, but we heard a lot of people in trouble – or worse. I think we need to get round the rest of the houses in the area, find out who’s left and start getting a bit organised. If there is a nest around here, it’s going to take more than us – even with the cats – to take care of it.”

  “I’ll get Kira to do some more homework, find out what she can about them. That book of hers seems to have all the answers.” Matt responded as they finished stacking chairs and started carefully knocking bloodied splinters of glass from the door frame.

  “That was another thing mate, I think we want to be careful with who we tell about that, and about the rest of our… magic stuff.”

  “Why?”

  Alan stopped for a moment, leaning on his staff. “Remember all the movies we’ve watched when the world ends, society goes to hell, and someone has a map, or something that has the answers? That kid in Waterworld with the map tattooed on her back? Denzel walking around with a bible? People are going to be desperate for anything which can show the way to get through this, and desperate people in the movies always do terrible stuff to get what they want. Especially the bastards who end up in charge.”

  “Movies aren’t reality Al.” Matt thought about this for a moment. “But I guess right now it doesn’t feel much like reality, does it?”

  “Nah mate, we are not in Kansas anymore. I just think it’s worth keeping our cards close until we see which way things go.”

  Matt nodded his appreciation, grinning at the source of his friend’s inspiration. “Good shout Al, thanks for putting me through some good – but mostly terrible - movies to learn the new life lessons.”

  Alan bristled in mock outrage. “Are you kidding? Denzel was a badass with his machete, and Dennis Hopper was the man in….”

  “Right up until he wasn’t!”

  “Yeah, yeah, laugh it up Disney prince. Kira had you go through the whole collection, didn’t she?”

  The two shared a laugh, looking over as Arlee cleared her throat, eyebrow arched at their escalating banter.

  “Maybe you can save the movie night nostalgia until we have a secure house again boys?” She gave a small smile to lessen the reprimand.

  “Sure Arl, we’re on it. Come on slacker.” Alan thumped Matt’s shoulder and they moved outside, through the now mostly cleared hole in the back door.

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  “What do you reckon to block this up with?” Alan asked, looking around.

  “Let me grab the keys, I have some spare loft floorboards, that should hold. Maybe nail tin lids for armour plating?”

  “Can’t you just make one of those patches to make something harder?” Alan suggested.

  Matt stopped struggling with the old padlock securing one of the several small sheds in the back garden and looked up, intrigued by the idea. His success with the ice cubes were a first proper step, but if he understood Kira’s transcribed information well enough, there were infinite possibilities open to him. Any item or material had characteristics – essence – he corrected himself, that could create an incredible effect.

  “Transparent aluminum!” He suddenly yelled, remembering the American pronunciation.

  “You what?” Alan reacted, startled at the sudden shout.

  “Holy crap, you’re bang on Al! Don’t you remember the old Star Trek movie with the time travel to find the whales? The crew need some heavy-duty material to transport the whales, so they give some modern day engineer the… the… whatever, formula, to create glass as hard and tough as metal. We could do the same!”

  “Windows and doors as hard as metal! T-shirts like armour! Transparent bricks!” Matt was almost trembling with excitement.

  “Flamethrowers and lightning guns? Something to get rid of a nest of giant bloody rats?” Alan asked sarcastically.

  “I haven’t got a clue how, but maybe!”

  “Well, let’s get finished out here so you can start experimenting then. Get that shed open!”

  They grinned at each other and Matt wrestled open the stiff padlock, opening the storage shed. He passed out a couple of boards to Alan, before grabbing his toolbox and other fixings. He looked wistfully at the electric drill and screwdriver that no doubt were just lumps of metal and plastic now, before turning and joining Alan by the back door.

  They spent the next hour lining up and securing boards over the broken doorframe, using an old rusty hand-drill from the depths of Matt’s toolbox. By the end of the hour their arms were aching from the dozens of screws they had used to secure everything in place, but they stood back and admired their handiwork. Arlee joined them outside, put her arm around Matt’s waist and kissed his cheek.

  “Well done boys, that looks pretty strong. So, are we sleeping back here tonight, husband mine?” Proud of her efforts, Arlee’s memory of the awful night still haunted her. It would be some time before she slept peacefully again.

  “Yeah, lets. We can stretch out in our own beds and give Al and Carry back their house. I need to bring my stuff back to try working on some new patches as well.”

  They moved back inside and locked up, stopping to complement Arlee on the complete transformation she had wrought while they had been fixing the door. Gone were the pools of blood, the coppery smell in the air and shards of broken glass. The floor was mostly clean, with only some discoloured edges to a few hard to scrub edges showing any sign that a life and death struggle had occurred.

  “Great job Arl.” Matt said quietly, kissing his wife’s forehead. “I didn’t think this place would ever look the same.”

  She squeezed his hand in sympathy, before following Alan out of the room toward the front door. Matt was about to follow when an unfamiliar feeling flicked his brain, causing him to pause and look around the room. The early afternoon light bathed part of the room, while the other half stood in light shadow. Out of the corner of his eye, Matt could have sworn there was movement, or maybe something like a heat mirage, but when he turned, there was nothing.

  “I really need a good nights’ sleep.” He muttered to himself as he followed the others, out of the house and back across the road.

  -----------------------------------------------------------------

  Collecting Kira and their various possessions from the Brands’ house came with an unforeseen complication – the apparently mandatory addition of two large furry guardians. While content to remain in the shadows while the humans moved around the house, the cats (neither family could bring themselves to still call them kittens anymore) would nevertheless appear suddenly on either side of Kira as soon as she left the house.

  Numerous attempts to get them to stay proved fruitless, and eventually they gave up and let them tag along.

  “It’s not as if they’re leaving us alone and unprotected love.” Carry explained. One of the remaining pair could be seen faintly inside the upstairs window, and the other was curled up on the living room sofa. She laughed at Kira’s not-incredibly-sincere protestations and gently pushed her back toward her waiting parents. “It seems that they have adopted you and will still be close by. I feel better knowing that they will be watching over you all.”

  Matt and Arlee waved and thanked their friends for the umpteenth time. Both couples realised that they would be intrinsically linked in this new experience, drawn closer together by circumstance, shared affection and common interest.

  Promising to return the following day to get planting started, the Tappers cast a careful eye to the sky, and swiftly moved over the road, Kira’s feline shadows flowing gracefully around them. Entering the house, Kira almost ran through the kitchen to the back room – a large, general-purpose room which they had knocked down an old garage to extend into some years before. The open space and collection of bean bags gave the cats lots of stretching room, and Matt also placed down the scratching post that Carry had insisted they took with them, after it became obvious that the cats had made their minds up.

  Kira settled into a bean bag, scratching an exposed tummy on Dragon as she rested the large book on her lap and started reading once more. Nala padded quietly upstairs, to take up station by a front window. Arlee bustled around upstairs, pulling out some spare blankets to make the cats more comfortable. Matt took his loom and box of supplies into the kitchen and was about to settle into a chair when the sensation he had felt before started once again.

  Whirling about, again he could see nothing at first. As his eyes adjusted though, he became aware of a distortion in the air, in the far corner of the kitchen. Akin to the heat mirages seen on roads on the hottest Summer days, the detail of the kitchen cabinets behind the distortion wavered and was only visible in vague shapes. Without taking his eyes off the anomaly, he turned and placed the loom and box on the kitchen table. As soon as the small frame left his hand, the hazy glimmering vanished. Not completely, he realised. Now that he knew what he was looking for, the faintest trace was still there – a remnant of the full vision he had caught just moments before.

  Reaching behind himself, he carefully laid a hand on the loom, and the wavering distortion became pronounced again. Picking the loom up, he made is way slowly across the kitchen, until he was only an arm length away.

  This is the part of the movie where one of the supporting cast reaches out, touches something and gets swallowed by a black hole, or zapped into atoms. He thought to himself, but in drawing close to… whatever this was, the faint sensation he had initially felt grew into a feeling of indescribable connection. Something so alien that he literally did not have the words to accurately convey what his senses were telling him. Like being struck by love, hearing the sound of art, a fleeting glimpse of nothing.

  His hand crept forward, the slow pace more a product of wonder than of caution. As it drew close, the feeling of connection grew, and he realised that it felt familiar to the feeling of completeness that had followed the creation of his patches. Before common sense could kick in, he reached out and clasped his hand around the core of the haze.

  His body locked in place. Energy pouring into, around and through every fibre of his being. For an instant eternity he was frozen, before the feeling subsided and he was free once more. Matt had once brushed his hand over an exposed wire from a lawnmower, and the ‘full body wobble’ that had caused felt very similar to the brief, blinding pain he had experienced. Choking up a gasping breath, he stumbled back and would have fallen, had he not found himself up against another kitchen counter.

  Drawing in deep breaths, he opened tightly shut eyes, vision immediately locking onto a vertical shaft of crackling red lightning. It gave off no sound, and drawing closer he felt no heat. It resembled the caged electricity of a lightning bottle, with no visible container, no reason for existing, only a certainty that it did.

  Matt moved to the fridge and grabbed a cola, before heading back to the kitchen table and sitting down heavily. Gathering his thoughts, he laid down the loom and again, the crackling bolt faded from vision, though it remained more noticeable than before he had ever-so-wisely grabbed it.

  “…a physical manifestation of significant connection for an individual…”

  Is that what this was? He thought as he sat swigging from the can of fizzy drink. He pulled out the sheets of notes that Kira had transcribed and read through until he found what he had remembered a fragment of:

  “A Locus (plural: loci) is a physical manifestation of significant connection for an individual to a specific location, event, emotion or action. Those with the capability to observe a manifestation may attune to it, creating a bond to the energy residue of the occurrence. This has the effect of optimising mental clarity, strengthening external arcanic expression and imbuing greater transfer of energy during arcanic creation.”

  If he focused inwardly, he could faintly feel a new energy within himself, barely a spark, but definably a new state of being. Looking around, he wondered what had created this… significant connection, creating the strange apparition. Looking down at the floor, noticing the scratches, the faint traces of blood….

  This is where I fought for my life, and the lives of my loved ones.

  Determination welled within him. And with this new power, I’ll find a way to keep them safe.