“Game!” I hop to my feet and pace around the little coffee table in the basement. “Is there an Ability that will allow me to sense, or search for, or find, pockets of excess magic before a surge hits it?” I ask out loud, adrenaline coursing through me.

  No.

  The excitement building in the room comes crashing down.

  “Anti-climactic,” Ryder mutters.

  “There’s not? Nothing that can sense the surges?”

  Sense the surges, yes. Before one hits, no. The best I can do is an Ability that can act like a compass, pointing you in the direction of a magic surge as it starts to build. There’s no precognition aspect of it.

  “Okay, I guess that’s better than nothing. I’d like to use two Rank Tokens, please. One to give me that Magical Ability and one to upgrade the Ability.” My profile is still up, and I watch the line change.

  You have 2 unused Rank Tokens

  “Add another one to Telekinesis, too,” I add as an afterthought. I need some way to fight that isn’t just my baseball bat. But I remember the thought I had as the raccoons were approaching. “And the last one into my strength.”

  The unused Rank Tokens line vanishes from my profile and I close the whole thing, satisfied for now. I don’t feel any different, but I don’t think I’ll ever be able to physically feel the effects of the magical changes the Game makes to me.

  “So we’re ignoring the part where it almost killed you?” Ryder asks. He lets out a long sigh. “Can we eat?” He asks, changing the subject entirely. “We haven’t eaten in a zillion hours.”

  That, at least, is a question I feel like I can answer. “Sure,” I say, and Nancy pops up and takes the blanket from Ryder’s legs. She starts to fold it as I add: “Let’s go figure something out.” I actively choose to not think, right now, about the fact that grabbing the magic surge might do some serious damage. And about how I want us to run toward those surges.

  Ryder’s right about one thing, though. Food first.

  We barbecue burgers, since the natural gas is still on and Ryder can light it with his flame. I pull buns and lettuce and a tomato from my inventory, ketchup and mustard and mayo. We eat at the table on the back porch, overlooking the backyard. The street my house is on is round, with my property on the inside of the circle. Each house has a slice-of-pie shaped property. It’s a pretty big pie, though, and from the back porch you can barely see our neighbours on either side, let alone the one we back on to. The whole area back here—the backyards of all the pie pieces we share the circle with—is silent, just wind brushing through the trees. It’s eery. I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to it.

  After dinner, Nancy asks if she can take her car and head back to her house, so she can claim the things she left behind by using her inventory. It’s getting dark, and I’m hesitant to let her go. Ryder offers to go with, which doesn’t really fix my hesitation, but I guess he has light and an offensive ability to protect Nancy a little.

  I also remember that for the first twenty-four hours of this whole thing, Nancy took care of herself. They go. I enjoy having the house to myself for a bit.

  Part of me wants to spend it with a book on the couch, reading by flashlight. But I also know I have chores to do. I go through the master suite and put the things of my parents’ that I can’t bear to part with into my inventory. I clear out the clothes from the closets, the contents of the bathroom counters and drawers. I take their bed and dresser, but leave the rest, unsure of what Nancy might be bringing. I take the framed family photos and put some of them up in the living room, and tuck the rest into my inventory. I clear it out so Nancy can move in.

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  It starts as a little prickling on the back of my neck, that sort of tingle you get when you feel like someone’s watching you. Like the anxiety of the other shoe being about to drop. “Game?” I whisper. “Is someone in the house?”

  The safety of the Safehouse is intact. You are alone.

  “So what is this that I’m feeling?”

  As I do not have a human body, nor human feelings, I cannot be sure of what you are feeling. I will, however, make an educated guess to say that’s your new Ability notifying you.

  I glance around, but there’s nothing to see. “Notifying me of what?”

  That a magic surge is starting to swell nearby. You should be able to see it on your map. But not in here; you’re in your Safehouse and can’t see beyond these walls.

  Yeah, too late, Game. My map is already overlaid in my vision and sure enough, I see nothing beyond the exterior walls of the house. I step onto the front porch, and have to go most of the way to where I found Ryder sitting this morning before the walls of the Safehouse vanish from the map and the roads of my development appear. Sure enough, a light purple haze is slowly moving over the map a few blocks away, and a wave of red dots start popping up, heading toward it.

  “Cool,” I say, and though I desperately want to go follow the wave, I don’t want to fight any monsters alone (or, let’s be real, at all).

  … And yet.

  My phone is still in my hand with the flashlight turned on and I already slipped into my shoes when I stepped outside, so what would it hurt to just check it out a little? I’ll be cautious, scope the scene, and not engage. I don’t even have my baseball bat with me.

  Maybe I should have gone back for my bat. Too late.

  Wait, I have my parents’ furniture in my inventory. I’ll just drop a dresser on someone.

  I take off down the street in the direction of the purple haze. It’s moving, but not too fast, and I think I can catch up to it. Assuming no wily monster intercepts me. The haze doesn’t move in a linear fashion, either, floating like clouds in whatever direction it wants. Though it’s clearly going right through houses, it appears that the buildings don’t have any effect on its route whatsoever.

  My steps echo in the empty street, the lampposts dead and the cars behemoths hulking in the shadows. The moon is bright, and that seems just enough to follow the path without needing the flashlight app. I turn it off, tuck it away.

  When I glance up, I stop walking. I’d forgotten how bright the stars can be.

  A sound pulls me back to earth, something walking through a pile of leaves. I freeze, trying to spot it in the low light, and spot the outline of something disappearing between two houses. When quiet once again falls, my trek continues. I hit a corner and turn up the next street, following the direction of the purple haze.

  The red dots of monsters are getting more plentiful now, no longer a mishmash of bodies but a true wave. I think back to Blue Jays games or concerts that I used to go to, and the way this feels similar: a few early-birds, wanting to get in quick, and then a solid throng of people descending onto the Rogers Centre all at once and forcing everyone into long lines and pushy crowds.

  It brings a wry smile to my lips. Man, I kinda miss that.

  Another quick turn and I’m onto the next street. But the purple haze shifts again, this time a pretty sharp cut, and I realize I’m totally not going to catch up to it. I stop walking, my head dropping back, and I let out a groan. Well that was a wasted adventure. Though I can’t help the smile at the sight of all the stars, bright and vivid in the sky. It makes me think of my old overnight summer camp, the way my friends and I would sneak out—not to go to the boys’ cabins, like some of our bunkmates did, but to go to the main field, where we could lie out and look at the stars.

  Spotting the Big Dipper now feels like visiting an old friend.

  It takes a bit, but eventually I realize I’m hearing whispers. I drop my gaze back to the street, trying to pinpoint where the sound is coming from. Other people? I hadn’t seen another human, or heard another car, come through the neighbourhood all evening. My sneaky walk continues, but this time with a very different purpose. And a very different level of sneakiness required.

  My ears lead me between two houses, where the gate of a wooden privacy fence has been pulled down. I don’t go into the yard—yeah, right, walk right into a yard where I’m hearing voices during the apocalypse when there’s likely no other way to get out? I’m not that dumb.

  No, I quietly open the neighbour’s fence and go into their yard.

  There’s definitely voices. But most of them don’t actually sound like they’re speaking English. I catch a few words I recognize, loot and magic and eat among them, but otherwise the words I can make out are hardly words at all.

  I sneak up along the edge of the privacy fence, trying to find a hole or a knot in the wood, something that I can look through. Of course, this one is pristine, so I can just catch some moving shadows.

  And then I remember my phone.

  Look, is it silly to keep my phone with me? Yes, of course. Cell towers are down. My phone will never work as a phone. But it’s charging while we drive, playing some music, and I like to be able to take pictures. And the flashlight on it really is powerful.

  I pull out my phone. I open the camera, set it on night mode, and make sure the flash is off. And then I lift it up and over the fence. I snap a picture.

  My phone has been on silent since the day I brought it home, so the camera makes no noise.

  But I do. I let out a small gasp when I open the picture. Because though it’s dark and grainy, I can make out enough:

  It’s a bunch of opossums, a small crowd turned toward the one standing on the porch.

  I guess I can tell Ryder that I found his talking animal.