“Wait!” I yelled, uselessly. My voice only encouraged the half-naked woman to pick up speed. An impressive amount of speed if I’m being honest.

The Native American beauty sprinted down the dark street barefoot, pumping her arms like she was on the last lap of an Olympic triathlon. Her hair flew behind her, bouncing energetically despite being wet, and with it, her rawhide skirt.

I stood there looking stupid in the rain for a moment, and I don’t really know why. Since arriving in this place, whatever this place is, I've seen way more weird crap than a post-apocalyptic Pocahontas. Hell, I’d done more creepy stuff. Maybe it was because of the abject fear on her face, or because she defied her abysmal surroundings with superb beauty and grace. A part of me worried she knew what I was, making her rapid escape sensible. Especially when I didn’t know what I had become. I didn’t think I would be a danger to her, but then I never thought I’d eat hearts like gas station king-sized snacks either.

Duke, on the other hand, was no victim of indecision. The Barghest didn’t even bother looking at me for approval; he just tore off down the wet pavement at a pace only a motorcycle had a chance of keeping up with. It was an outcome I should have foreseen. Anyone that knows dogs would tell you that the last thing you should do is run from them. Death had not quelled his instinct to hunt down prey. If anything, it seemed to only have made it much, much worse.

“Duke! Stop!” I shouted after him. He either pretended to ignore me or couldn’t hear me from his already respectable distance, leaving me with no choice but to pursue.

My iron strength elevated muscles sent me flying after them with such force I could barely contain my enthusiasm. Running was an exercise I hated but did regularly. This wasn’t anything like that; I felt free and light. The only thing stopping me from letting out a giant “whoop!” was that I was afraid it would scare the woman running from us more than she already was.

One block went by in a blur, and before I knew it, I was catching up at a prodigious rate. Turning left, I cut across the street corner, leaping over a rusty mailbox, and following my hound onto the road. I’d never traveled this particular street, having only gone up and down the one in front of that decrepit hotel. However, the buildings I passed fit in with the insane, abandoned aesthetic of the dark city. An old 1980s styled laundromat with the windows busted out sat on my left, across from a two-story apartment building that was probably built in the 1930s. Each of the eclectic edifices had nothing in common with the buildings next to it, almost purposefully so. And it was eerie and concerning in equal measures.

Unfortunately, I did not have the luxury to ponder the architecture. In the distance, I saw the poor native woman leap onto an old dumpster, then throw herself up at a fire escape. Her fingers barely gripped the old, rusty stairs, and she did an admirable job of pulling herself up while her body swung around. Not a moment too soon did she reach safety, either.

Duke finally caught up to her and leapt completely over the dumpster. I could do nothing but gape in frustration as his wide-open mouth, full of gleaming bone white fangs, missed the woman’s foot by nary an inch. The wind of his passing sent her hide skirt flapping again, and she screamed out what I assumed was her tribe’s version of “shit!”. A massive crash came right after her close call, but I was too mad to worry after the Barghest.

“Duke! What the fuck, man!” I yelled, still running after him.

The native woman disappeared, jumping through an open window into what I took for an office building. Rounding the corner, I spotted my canine companion inside the driver's seat of an old dump truck. His momentum had carried him over the dumpster and directly into the windshield of the vehicle. Glass was everywhere.

“Duke! You get over here right now!” I commanded.

Leaping out of the truck was more difficult for him than I expected. Duke’s lion sized shape caused him to duck down and crawl over the dashboard to get out. He did me the courtesy of looking contrite, with his head down and boney tail wagging at a subdued speed.

“What is going on with you, buddy?” I asked. Duke whined, trying to lick my hand with that awful tongue.

“You can’t just—look, I know things are weird right now, bud, but you can’t just go and eat people!” I stammered. I doubt he understood my words, but he got the context. He whined again, but I wouldn’t hear it.

“I needed to talk to that woman! There is no way in hell she’s going to talk to us now. I mean, I wouldn’t,” I said, throwing up my hands, exasperated. We were very close to me calling him a bad dog.

“Look, just let me try to talk to her. I need to find out where the gate-thing is,” I explained to my undead companion. Or was he just dead? His breath smelled dead.

Stepping back, I examined the four-story building she fled into with a more critical eye. The sign on the front said the “Porter Printing Company, since 1901”. Old time-y faded red bricks lent the sign some validity. I reasoned it would be a miracle if the exterior of the building were anything less than a century old. The signs and front door, however, looked relatively modern. There was even a defunct camera on the corner of the place. I wondered if that was a recent addition, or if something had transported the building like it was.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Continuing in a circuit around the place, I spotted a mildew and oil-stained loading area at the back. Though all the rusty pull-down doors appeared locked tight, I gave them a good jiggle to make sure. After trying to open a door twice, I decided against continuing. It occurred to me that the poor women in the dark building wouldn’t care much for the sound of her pursuer trying to break his way in to follow her. Even though that was exactly what I was doing.

When I got to the opposite side of the building from the fire escape, there was a surprise waiting for me. Across the roofs of nearby buildings, including the one the native had run into, were rickety vine walkways. A network of the, frankly unsafe looking, bridges ran between alleys and windows, along with ropey ladders. It wouldn't surprise me if someone had taken the fragile passageways from the set of an action-adventure movie. Every single bridge was just asking to have that scene where the protagonist almost falls to their doom as the planks succumb to their weight.

The Native woman was clearly not the protagonist.

She scurried across the bridge on her tiptoes, not even a little afraid of a plunge to her doom. At best guess, I’d say she was only 120 pounds wet, which she most definitely was, but evidently that was enough to send the bridge swaying. Despite the rocking, she quickly danced her way toward the opposite rooftop.

“Huh,” I said, looking at her from the darkness below.

Following her was the right choice. Until we spotted each other, I had thought that there would be no normal people in this purgatory. Not that she was like anyone I’d ever met. It’s just she was more in line with what I am accustomed to, unlike the Hellraiser extras the scroll called Talcums. Or however you say that word. Hopefully, she would lead me to a quaint little village of normal people that could help me find the gate.

Duke and I followed her from building-to-building unseen. It was easy for us to keep pace, and it got me wondering what the purpose of the walkways were. Crossing rooftops certainly did not help her put distance between us. Was the street level more dangerous? Or was it that her people lived on the rooftops?

I considered running ahead to cut her off on the next rooftop, but after what Duke had done, I thought it best to be less aggressive for my next approach. So, we continued along in the alleyway between buildings for a bit, watching her progress. Well, it was mostly me watching her; I trusted Duke to monitor things at the ground level. His senses were much better than mine, anyway.

Once she reached a street, she ran into a problem. A much larger bridge had been built between the four-story building she was on and the seventh-floor condominium across the street. The height difference turned the walkway into a sharply sloping ramp. For her to cross it in the pouring rain would be a genuine act of courage. Fortunately, the street crossway was considerably more stable looking than the smaller between building versions.

But that wasn’t the problem. The central issue was that the ramped bridge was the only one across the street. And, when she was halfway across, one of those talcum fuckers spotted her from the opposite roof.

The body-modified savage began screaming at her as if she’d just shit on his foot. He hopped up and down, gesturing threateningly at her with a spear while shooting a volley of questions. She answered in a subdued voice. But whatever she’d said only made him angrier. He responded with a word I suspected would have gotten him cuffed if his mother had been around.

Interrogation over, the short bastard nimbly leaped onto the bridge and began stalking his way toward her. Yellow teeth, filed down to fangs, were visible in his awful smile. I could tell from that one look he was not her ally. His hateful gaze was one of lust and hunger, large enough for me to make it out across the distance.

True to my prediction, a look of terror crossed her face. She started walking back the way she came, cautiously sliding backward without lifting her feet too high. I suspected she was afraid of him tossing that spear at her.

Which gave me an idea.

Looking around for something to toss at him didn’t take me long. A bunch of old beer bottles filled with rainwater sat on nearby steps. I picked several of them up and held them to my chest with my left arm. My intention was to buy her time to escape by tossing bottles at him, but I needn’t have bothered.

The first pitch shot out of my hand like a cannonball, creating a whistling noise so loud everyone halted in their tracks. Except Duke, who just tilted his head to the side like dogs do when encountering a thing that didn’t compute.

My projectile struck the lunatic between the eyes with the force of a rocket. A nasty “SPLUT” sound echoed into the night, sending the meanie backward over the railing to the street below. A second later, he hit the ground with a “SPLAT”, but it did not kill him.

Instead, his legs, arms, hell, everything, twisted in horrific directions.

“Holy tomato!” I shouted, dropping the other bottles to the street in a clatter.

The man wailed, screaming out his pain into the night, and I almost felt a little guilty. No one should have to survive a thing like that. Lucky for him, Duke considered him fair game, like a table scrap that had fallen off the dinner table and rushed over to give him the urgent medical care he needed.

Dr. Duke’s wide jaw wrapped around the savage’s head, then tore it off in a ludicrously wide spray of blood. The Barghest didn’t stop there. With admirable diligence, my companion persisted in a full body inspection, efficiently pulling off each of the offending extremities for further inquiry.

[Tlacotin Defeated + 3% Legacy]

Scroll popped up with his bullshit, and I rolled my eyes. A second later it vanished.

I sincerely hoped that Duke got the anger issues out of his system with this killing.

The native woman watched me from above, giving me a calculating look. Purposely avoiding the murder scene Duke was happily decorating beneath her feet.

I pointed at Duke and said, “Sorry!” Since I suspected she did not understand me, I also gave her an exaggerated look of sadness.

For close to a minute, she sat there in the rain staring at me. It might have been longer. All I know for sure was that it was long enough to make me uncomfortable. Eventually, she came to a decision. Pointing at Duke, she moved her hand to point at the ground. After that, she pointed at me, then up to the rooftop.

I gave her a quick smile and a thumbs up. Now, I just needed to find a way to communicate.