In the week following The Voice’s announcement, the trio settled into a fragile rhythm. The days still began with sunlight filtering through the cracks in the shutters and ended with long shadows stretching across the floor. The sun rose and the sun set, but beneath that familiar cycle, nothing felt normal.

  The weather had turned colder than it should have for early autumn, with biting wind in the morning and thin sheets of frost clinging to the windows at night. The neighborhood had become a ghost town during the day. No mail. No garbage trucks. No joggers or kids on bikes. Nothing Adam had grown used to for the last several years. Just silence, broken now and then by the roar of something hungry, or the scream that sometimes followed.

  Samantha took it upon herself to lead them through daily meditation exercises, which usually ended in grumbles from Adam or wordless eye rolls from Natalie.

  Samantha claimed it was helping, but he wasn’t so sure.

  On her own time, she managed to levitate paperclips and fling them across the room with sharp flicks of her hand. Her favorite form of exercise, however, were the glowing orbs of fire she'd tried to nickname "Magic Missiles." After a few rounds of laughter from Adam and Natalie, she had abandoned the nickname.

  She practiced the ability off of the back deck, aiming at empty bottles and soda cans from Adam's bin that would never make it to the recycling center. Her first attempt forced Adam to grab his emergency fire extinguisher when the bolt went wide and set the deck alight. After a few more attempts she whooped in triumph when the ball of fire finally annihilated one of the crumpled cans.

  He'd been making slow progress himself. Sparks now danced on his fingertips when he focused, and he could coax a weak current through his bat. The energy faded quickly along the metal, barely more than hazy blue arcs, but it was something. He guessed it wasn't much of a charge, but without a voltmeter there was no way to be sure, and a trip to the hardware store wasn't as easy as it used to be.

  He experimented with several devices, his TV remote, flashlights, even an ancient iPod that hadn't been charged in years, and found if he didn't try too hard, he could convince the device to return to life. The effort left him with a headache if he pushed himself too hard, but he found it oddly satisfying. At least he’d never need batteries again.

  Natalie stayed focused on practical matters, checking doors, taking inventory of their dwindling food stocks, and keeping watch through the windows during the day. She joined the meditations without complaint, but seemed distant, often staring into space rather than engaging in conversation. Her sleep schedule had become erratic, and she had taken to sleeping in short stretches, often with a chair dragged near the stairs to the front door. She never explained why.

  Conversation gave way to silence as they endured the isolation. Occasionally, a car would pass down the street, but never slowed before disappearing, and the only other sounds were cries of something hunting, or being hunted.

  After several days of guided meditation, Samantha had reassembled a small pile of paper and led them through an hour of attempted paper-moving. Neither Natalie nor Adam managed to budge a single scrap, and the pile remained stubbornly inert.

  "I think some people probably have an aptitude for certain things and not others," Samantha said, picking up the penlight and studying it. Adam watched her concentrate until beads of sweat formed on her forehead, but the stubborn little bulb refused to even flicker.

  "Like this. I can't make it light up no matter how hard I try." She tossed the flashlight back to Adam, who immediately brought it to life.

  “So, you can move things with your mind, and shoot fireballs from your fingertips, but you can’t power a flashlight. Some wizard you are,” Adam said.

  Samantha pointed a glowing fingertip at him.

  "Hey! Not in the house!" he shouted.

  She laughed and extinguished her finger, shrugging.

  "Does all of this seem kind of like bullshit to you?"

  “Yeah, but I’m sure the first person shot with an arrow thought it was bullshit too," she countered. "It didn’t make the arrow go away, though. That’s just the rules. You put an object in motion; it stays in motion. Except now there are new rules. Maybe the new cosmic rule is Adam gets to save on his power bill.”

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  Adam smirked, making the bulb flash a few times in response. “I guess that’s fair," he said, pocketing the penlight.

  “Maybe at some point we can start making the rules, but given how badly people were screwing things up before this... I’m not sure that would be much better.”

  She sighed heavily, her breath scattering the small mound of paper bits across the table. Samantha closed her hand into a fist, and the scraps slid back into a neat pile.

  “Can you imagine the looks if you did that two weeks ago? If you just waved your hand and someone’s change floated right back into their hand?” Adam asked.

  Natalie laughed and nodded. “You would either have a lot more business or a lot less," she said, and with that her smile began to fade. “The sun's going down. We should start locking up.”

  Adam joined her on the deck, looking out over the deserted neighborhood. In the past few days, they'd seen walking corpses, strange figures slipping between houses, and something that looked like a horse-sized badger dragging a body across the street.

  They kept quiet, kept the windows shuttered and the door barred, and so far nothing had paid them much attention.

  He had managed to send his parents and Stephen a few messages. His parents had confirmed they were okay. His father still insisted everything would blow over, and his mother mostly agreed. He told them he loved them, and they had said it back. None of them mentioned that, given the distance, they'd probably never see each other again.

  Stephen never replied.

  That night, they watched New York City burn.

  A news helicopter captured footage of something that looked suspiciously like a dragon swooping over Central Park, a stream of fire pouring from its open mouth. Everything in its path went up in a flaming inferno.

  The creature would have struggled to fit inside of a football field, its wingspan easily tripling its absurd length. The recording ended with several fighter jets scrambling to intercept the monster and the image cut out just as a missile struck the creature's side, the explosion engulfing the news helicopter.

  Adam shut the TV off and tossed the remote onto the coffee table with a scowl.

  “I can’t sit here anymore, even if whatever is out there kills me. I have to see what’s going on,” he said, standing up, too agitated to sit still. “You’re both welcome to stay, but I have to at least try to check on Stephen."

  "We couldn't stay even if we wanted to," Natalie replied. "Sooner or later we'll run out of food, the power will fail, or something will come crashing through the walls." She looked over at Samantha. "Our only option is to get out there. Either we find more people, or we figure out how to make this place more secure."

  “I might have an idea about the last part,” Samantha offered.

  Adam and Natalie both turned toward her.

  “Did you take up construction while I was at the gun range, Sam?” Natalie teased.

  “No,” Samantha said, her gaze drifting slightly. “The Pagegrinder has a few books on circles of protection, warding, and guarding your home from otherworldly forces. Even if it wasn’t real before, I might be able to adapt some of the ideas into something that actually works now. But it’s definitely a long shot.”

  “That’s… a really good idea,” Adam said. Given what Samantha could already do, he wasn’t about to start doubting her now. “Better than anything I've come up with. My plan was to drill a bunch more 2x4s into the wall and hope the door holds."

  "And if we all die horrible deaths out there," Natalie gestured in a loose circle to indicate everywhere, "at least we won't have to deal with it anymore."

  Samantha leaned her head against Natalie’s shoulder. “I absolutely married you for your amazing positivity. But hey, if we die, I’m pretty sure there’s an afterlife. I mean if the supernatural is real, it kind of makes sense, right?”

  The thought hung in the air.

  After a minute, Adam finally broke the silence. “I don’t think I can parse that right now. How about we circle back when we’re not in an apocalypse?”

  Natalie snorted. “Oh god, no. He’s using the office phrases again. Let’s circle back and touch base later. We’ll find a way to think outside the box.”

  Adam felt his cheeks flush. “Fuck you,” he said, trying to keep a straight face.

  Samantha burst out laughing, and soon they were all cackling. It felt good to laugh, even if the world was burning down around them.

  “So, tomorrow we go on the worst coffee run in history?” Adam asked.

  “Sounds like a plan. We can pick up some of the dry stuff in the store, assuming it hasn't been looted,” Samantha said, wiping her eyes.

  “Sam, I have a question,” Natalie interrupted.

  “Hm?” Samantha gave her a curious look.

  “Could those circles of protection work on a car?”

  "Maybe? From what I remember, they have to be anchored in place. So, not while the car's moving. But maybe while it's parked?" Samantha picked at a hangnail as she considered. "They're stronger if tied to a hearth or a home, depending on the interpretation. But... maybe?"

  “What do you have in mind?” Adam asked, sitting on the edge of his chair.

  "Well, if we're going to hit the Pagegrinder and check on Stephen, we might be out after dark. And we've all heard what comes out after the sun goes down." Natalie ran a hand through her hair. "We'll need a way to stay safe, or at least a wall to put our backs to. That way, we only die horribly from one direction.”

  Samantha elbowed her gently and shook her head. “Quit that. You’re not getting out of this marriage that easily.”

  “I think she’s right.” Adam rubbed his hands together. “We need a backup plan. Obviously, the best move is to be back here by nightfall. But, if we get separated, or if one of us doesn't make it back... we need a fallback. It sucks, but that's the reality."

  “We’ve all seen the bodies. We know what’s at stake,” Samantha said with a nod.

  As if in response to their thoughts, the front door shook from a sudden impact.