There came an elastic aftershock of creaks and groans and then, softly softly, a chinking shower of rubbled cement. Leaves calmed and trunks stood serene. Where, not a minute before, there had been a suburb, there was now only woodland standing amid ruins…
There is no warning. No chance to prepare.
They arrive in the night: thundering up through the ground, beating at the air with their branches, transforming streets and towns into shadowy forest.
Buildings are destroyed and power lines felled. Broken bodies, still wrapped in tattered bed linen, hang among the twitching leaves. Something creeps and whispers overhead. A wolf begins to howl…
