The upper floor was empty, except the balcony that had been turned into a miniature garden. There were many large and small pots full of blooming flowers near the wall and the black bar protective grill. There was a toppled chair near the back wall, and a swing hanging from the roof at the center.

Kali would have liked the place, but I decided to tell her later. That moment was about me and my feelings. I scratched an itch under my left arm and stood up taking the support of the black grill to peer at the road below.

A cold wind was blowing from my left, helping me relax. And there was no one around. The road was empty and the houses silent as night. It was a hauntingly beautiful, yet scary sight.

I enjoyed the emptiness, but only because I was no longer alone. I did not, however, enjoy the sweet scent that came with the wind. The scent was too sweet, even sweeter than what Cob had emitted after death. I licked my whiskers to clean them and tracked the scent. It was coming from the corner at the end of the road and was growing stronger. I didn’t have to wait long for the source to turn around the corner.

I knew him, the screamer that had found its way back to us. The screamer no longer had a hole in his chest and his face had healed, but that only made it easier for me to recognize him. He was the man-cub who used to throw stones at Dimple. He was not screaming and reminded me of how I could heal my injuries. To think the screamers could accomplish the same was horrifying. My hair and tail stood up in vigilance. A growl came up my throat, but I stopped it at my lips. He had a dangerous air to himself, and I didn’t want to invite him any closer.

The man-cub was naked from the head to toe, and I could see his skin; it was blue. His muscles were taut and veins wriggling like worms, much like the one roarer from the park. To my horror, he stopped in front of the unfinished building that I once occupied, then moved over and slowly approached our house.

Oh boy! What I feared had happened. He had found the scent trail that Kalki had left.

He crouched on the patio, put his hands on the floor, and sniffed the air. His veins stopped wriggling and pulsating when he found what he was looking for, and then he jumped at the gate. He didn’t have a good intention when he crashed into the gate shoulder first, then straightened himself and started banging it with all his might, bellowing at the top of his guttural, rasping voice.

Kalki dropped something inside the house and it broke into pieces, creating enough noise to make sure the screamer wouldn’t simply leave. Our guest instantly became enraged upon learning that the house wasn’t empty, and with that my heart fell. I could almost hear other screamers shuffling out of the dark holes they were hiding inside. It was my imagination at first, but as time passed their sweet-sweet scent rode the wind and found me. That was enough of a warning.

I needed to stop the menacing, scary fiend before the others gathered. I almost jumped from the balcony, but there was no perimeter wall to shorten my fall. It would have been foolish to jump from there.

I ran back into the house, barking without care. I couldn’t stop myself. It was an instinct, and it just happened. The screamer had a reaction to my barks, but the situation was already bad enough.

Kalki was waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs, holding the flat long bat that she had brought along to save me from the two screamers last night.

Stop barking. She whispered when she saw me. It will hear us!

Well, it already had.

She tried to catch me, but I slipped past her only to be stopped by the locked front door.

God damn it, Spring, shut up! She warned when I barked at her to open the door, but she obviously didn’t understand.

So I shut up like she wanted and ran up the stairs once again —this time around she followed me to the balcony.

The banging was obnoxiously loud. Her legs started shaking when she looked over the grill and saw the screamer standing below. I stood up using the balcony grill as support and barked at the screamer. Its scent had the heat inside my heart rolling down my veins once again. And in a moment of confidence or stupidity —they both seemed the same to me— I jumped over the grill.

Kalki could only scream as I fell.

My forelegs grew thicker in front of my eyes, but the screamer was waiting for me below. He swung an arm at me as I descended. I didn’t expect that at all, but he connected and I fell over the flower pots, banging my head over one of them. A gasp escaped my throat as the pot shattered below me. The impact was strong enough to steal all the air from my lungs. I blacked out for a second. The heat flowing down my veins cooled as I blacked out.

Pain pulled me out of the darkness. I howled as the screamer tore a large mouthful of flesh and muscles from my chest. He was eating me alive, and I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t move, couldn’t change. The heat remained static in my heart refusing to move. I could hear the other screamers rounding the corners and coming toward us. They were gathering.

The man-cub engulfed the meat that he had torn off my body and then came for my heart.

Warning bells rang in my head as it came for me. I struck out of instinct.

I crunched up and bit his nose, shook my head, and tore it from his face. He bellowed in irritation, showing no sign of pain. I growled in return.

The gate opened with a bang.

Kalki stared at the both of us on the ground from above, holding a can in one hand and something small in the other. I saw the screamer's scarlet eyes pulsate with hunger when he looked at her, but Kalki acted before he could and rained fire upon him. He screamed, finally in pain, as his face caught the fire. He pulled away from me, from us, fell on the road, and start rolling in agony.

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Kalki looked shocked beyond belief, and I was no different. The smell of burnt flesh was way worse than I expected it to be, but the screamer soon had the fire extinguished. His face was charred black when he raised his head and charged toward her. The can hissed once more and rained fire upon the screamer again, but he no longer seemed to care. It seemed to me like she had not only burned away his face, but also his hesitations. Now only a beast remained, and it was hungry.

Running up the stairs he lunged at Kalki with his arms stretched forward. Kalki screamed, I barked and jumped at it. I bit into its leg and it fell on the patio slope. The tips of his fingers barely missed Kalki’s face, but they managed to knock out the fire breathing can from hand, and the fire from her eyes. She hurriedly pulled back behind the gate as the screamer crawled toward her like an insect.

I found my feet just as it had managed to crawl into the house and pulled it back outside.

He wasn’t done yet, but neither was Kalki. She was scared, I could almost smell it in her sweat, but she picked up one of the heavier flower pots from her left and threw it at the screamer. Te pot collided with his head and it grew dazed. The fire relit in her eyes as she stood up and picked the heaviest pot she could lift. I don’t know how she did it, but she raised the large-bucket sized pot above her head and brought it down upon the screamer's skull.

The pot broke from the impact, and its broken pieces rolled down the patio slope, creating sharp piercing noises. However, it wasn’t enough to stop the screamer. It shook off the daze and raised its head again, only to be confronted by another pot, this one smaller in size, but thrown at its head. And this time its skull burst open, leaking a dark sludge —which the scattered soil absorbed— and a mouth-watering sweet odor that I could not absorb.

Kalki had exhausted herself and breathed laboriously, believing it was over. Then the screamer squirmed into motion and her eyes went round and wide. I barked thrice to get her attention and jumped at the screamers back.

My heart burned in anger to see her look so defeated; it caused the warmth inside my heart to flow into my veins. It moved toward my chest and head. A black web of mass covered the large bite wound on my chest and closed it for good. But the flow was not done. It inflated my neck muscles with strength, traveled up and changed my jaw, entered my head, and healed the abrasion and the headache.

In anger, I tore into the screamer's cracked skull and started devouring its brain. Anger and hunger mixed together as I chewed through its hard skull and soft brain matter.

I heard Kalki barfing nearby, but I couldn’t concentrate on anything other than the scent and the voice.

JOIN ME!

Fighting its invitation was harder than fighting the screamer.

Deep inside the brain, I found the source of the scent. It looked like the splinter of glass, a shard. Well, I engulfed it too and the scent disappeared right away. The thing was smaller than my nails, but it was surprisingly warm and filling. I could feel it moving down my throat.

My muscles squirmed with strength as it traveled to my stomach where it melted into a stream of warmth. Some of it disappeared into my body, producing a tingling sensation all over my body, while the rest moved over to my heart, strengthening the pool of heat already present, while a small stream of the flow rose toward my head.

My sight turned dark when the heat touched my brain. I saw flashes, memories of the human-cub before he had died. He was fighting, getting beaten by someone twice his size. They shouted at him and he cried. A while later he left his house, full of anger and angst. He was determined to have his revenge, but not against the one who had beaten him. No, he wanted to find someone weak to bully. He found a dog and a wicked smile grew on his face. He picked a rock from the side of the road and threw it at the dog. He laughed at first then the dog charged at him.

That’s where the flash ended and I found myself swaying. This —this had never happened before! I barfed out the contents of my stomach. It was not a nice feeling. Kalki looked worried, but we hadn’t the time to waste. The screamers were coming, and not just en or two. If I was to believe my nose, a horde was assembling nearby and we were its target.

Kalki’s scream put a stop to my thoughts. I looked around for a screamer but turned out she was afraid of me. It hurt to see pull away from me, but we didn’t have time for foolishness. The house was not safe anymore.

I pulled her dead fur, but that only caused her to scream harder and kick at me. It was a hopeless situation. But she didn’t have to throw a flower pot at me! I could have gotten hurt. I dodged the second one she threw and she grunted in frustration.

Her neck muscles turned taut when she screamed at me. What the fuck are you!

I whined, but that didn’t make her stop gritting her teeth. It was the appearance of another screamer that chocked her. It was crawling out across the same bloody corner, attracted by our loud display. I let out another whine and chased my tail, hoping she’d understand my intention. It was how I usually signaled Kanti to take me outside. Finally, she understood.

Kalki dropped the flower pot she was holding and looked between me, the intruder, and the corpse on our patio and finally realized what I was trying to tell her. The understanding made her curse something truly nasty. I only understood it from the intensity of her voice, not the meaning. Kanti had many such words, one for every occasion actually — for when he stubbed his toe, or when the roti burned, or he fell, or the roaring monster that he rode everyday refused to move.

And she ran inside the house. It caused me to howl in frustration. We needed to leave, not bunker down! But she proved me wrong.

Kalki hadn’t run inside the house to hide but to get her things. I jumped up in relief when I saw her, tail fluttering like a grass blade in wind. She came out of the house with a large brown bag slung over her shoulder and stopped when she saw me. I barked at her thrice and she shook her head.

Let’s go, boy. She said with determination and we rushed out of the house. She seemed to have a destination in mind or maybe she was simply running away from the screamer, and I quietly followed her.

Coincidently, she turned right from the four-way junction, toward the row of houses. It was the only street devoid of any and all activity. I ran ahead to check things, but I really could not sense any screamers in that direction.

We had only passed a few houses when Kalki slowed. Really, tired already? We were not safe yet and could not slow down. The screamers could run and they were fast. We needed to find a new place to hide and fast. It was a dangerous situation. At least she wasn’t screaming.

However, that changed when I smelled the sweet invitation in the air. There was a signal, then another, and another. But the road was empty. Where were they?

Then a screamer jumped from the roof behind us and our situation flipped from bad to worse.