We did not meet any more screamers on the road. However, the signs of struggle were plenty and everywhere. Dark blood covered the street in patches of red. Kalki hopped over them, avoiding getting any on her foot, and I followed her in the practice. It was fun. Dead skins fluttered from the wires when wind grazed past them. A vegetable cart had fallen on its sides, and all the vegetables had rolled over on the street. Flies buzzed above them. I smelled a few but shied away from their scent.

No! Kalki warned.

Not like I was going to eat them or anything. They were rotten and beyond eatable. There weren’t any houses on fire, but the street was all too silent. This area used to be the most active since all the hu-mans living there had cubs, but no one played there anymore. It was alarming how quickly the whole area had turned into a dead zone.

How about that one? Kalki talked to herself. No, it can be accessed from the roof and the stairs are not safe either. We need someone place that is set apart from other houses, at least separated by a few taller structures.

All the hu-mans were gone. Kalki also realized it and the reason she talked to herself. Kanti used to cook when he was depressed, maybe it was her way of coping with pressure. I didn’t know where they all had gone to, but Kalki suddenly stopped. She had found a home that she liked.

It was a small grocery shop, built into the house with an open shutter looking onto the street. The homes on either sides were double-storied, while it only had a single floor. Not plastered or painted, the bare bricks reminded me of the place that Kanti had built me. So I obviously liked it.

There was another one opposite it, on the other side of the road, but that one was closed. She climbed over the steps and peered inside. A big smile covered her face when she looked back.

Come over boy. She patted the top of the counter. Looks like a fine place to spend the night, doesn’t it? She said and back around, threw her bag over the white wooden countertop, and then climbed inside. I rushed over the steps after her and stood up with my feet on the counter like a customer waiting to be served.

I barked at her as she pushed through the cluttered floor and into the adjacent room through the open door at the back.

I jumped atop the counter and checked the shop. There were boxes of treats toppled over on the floor. Most were still intact, while one had its orange-colored treats spilled out on the grey floor like guts out of a body. My mouth watered as I looked over them, but the scent of dried blood threw me off. The wooden racks by the wall were all broken, and their contents had found a new home on the floor. The packets were still closed, so that was good news.

Kalki had the house secured before my thoughts ended. I had an itch that I scratched before following her footsteps to the back room, the only other room, and found her… cleaning. She needed the distraction.

The room had no windows, and it was jam-packed with human stuff. The walls were grey and the atmosphere gloomy.

A single door looked into the room, leading directly to the main gate. The kitchen and the pooper were both outsides and sharing a wall with the shop and the room; no wonder there were no windows.

Whoever used to live in the home did not like cleanliness, because there was a lot of dirt and there were a lot of sweaty and smelly dead furs lying around. Kalki was busy putting them away for good. She had her face covered, so I lay by the door where the air was fresh and smell nonexistent.

Cleaning the room kept her occupied for the large part of an hour, and was sweating profusely by the time she was done. The sun was started to set outside and the room was growing darker. She had stowed everything to the back of the wall, emptying the room of everything other than a folding bed and a bedsheet, which she spread flat on the floor near the door.

The wind was strong near the door and it kept ruffling it. I jumped atop of it to keep it from flying while she ran around the house collecting heavy things to put them at the four corners. It was during this time that she found two locks and palmed her face.

How can I be so foolish? She mumbled out loud, then stood up without explaining anything to me and rushed out of the home. I ran after her and stood at the open main gate as she closed the shutter. She wasn’t tall by any measure and had to climb the counter to get it down. Kanti wouldn’t have needed to climb anything. He was pretty tall himself and strong. I believe he would have managed to get it down with one arm.

However, the crashing noise that it made while closing made my heart leap to my throat. I ran outside on the road to keep a lookout while she locked the shutter for good. I didn’t smell anything in the air, or see anyone poking their head out of a house; everything was fine. I heaved in relief.

She turned toward me once she was done. What are you doing? She asked, holding a smile. Are you keeping watch? My tail swayed when she talked like that, stretching the words and adding funny sounds at the end of them.

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Say, do you want treats? The swaying tail started dancing and I rushed after her when she ran inside the house.

Thankfully, she didn’t spray the gate with her scent this time around.

She salvaged everything she could from the shop and brought it over, spread it over the bedsheet, and started teasing me. Saliva dripped from my mouth just thinking about everything we would be eating and she had a laugh.

I sat intently staring at her playing with the colorful packets. She shook them one by one asking me which one I wanted to eat, damn with choosing, I just wanted her to open one fast. There were packets of biscuits, munchies, and other things, and she finally decided to open one.

But only one, okay, She said. Yeah, yeah, I knew how she ate. And just like I expected, soon we had gone through a full packet of salty biscuits, three packets of spicy potatoes wafers, two cans of fizzy soda, and she was cooking that yellow long worm-like thing, the noob-les, in a pot of boiling water. It was a very fun evening.

She didn’t bathe me this time around, but she cleaned my face and body with a wet cloth. It didn’t make me feel any better.

The room turned dark when the night came.

One of these houses will surely have an inverter. She mumbled to herself, went into the shop, and brought another packet over. I was interested in the waxy long white sticks she pulled out of it; that is until she lit one and it burned a bright orange flame.

She had called the fire monster! I stood up in attention and growled, and warned it to not hurt us, but it ignored me. For some reason, it was not dancing like that one that Kanti had summoned in the winter.

It’s alright, boy. It’s just a flame. No need to worry. Here look—

She put her finger through it. I howled in pain for her, but she laughed and showed me the finger. The damned monster had marked her, but she didn’t look hurt. I licked the mark to see what it wanted, but it had not left any clues. Maybe it didn’t want to be disturbed. That could be true.

But then she summoned more of them and I almost peed myself. Thankfully, she separated them and put them near the walls. My heart didn’t settle until she brought over the yellow worms that she had been cooking and we had a taste of them. They were spicy, tangy, and tasty; in simple words they were delicious. And unlike Kanti, who never game me more than a few spoonfuls, she shared half a bowl with me.

I was taking her side if she ever fought with Kanti. She had won me over.

She pulled out the dead mouse from her pocket once we were done eating and started poking its belly. However, it was still upset with her and kept repeating the same thing as before. It should have listened to her this time around because she’d had enough of its antics. Frustrated, she groaned and threw it at the wall. The mouse squeaked and broke into pieces. I barked at it to let it know that it deserved it.

Oh, no… She mumbled. No, no, no, no—

She chanted in panic and scrambled on the floor collecting its scattered remains.

What did you do, you stupid bird brain girl? What did you do? Please, please work. Please work!

Her hands trembled as she fumbled through the assembly. Then clamped her hands together and prayed to someone that lived over the roof before poking the more than dead mouse once more.

It remained dead.

GOD! Help me out here, please!

She shook the thing, rubbed its back, and struck it against her palm before poking its belly once again.

Finally, it buzzed in activity and she fell back on her hips exhaling the breath she had been holding. She had been on her knees all this time. It was kind of like when a bird chick falls from the nest. Sometimes, they get rescued by their mothers and other times get eaten by the cat.

The cat!

I stood up, attentive, and thoughtful. Ears, tail, and hair, everything stood up straight with me. Maybe I scared her because she gasped. However, I couldn’t put her in my thoughts. I had just realized something very important.

The cat knew Rusty and Cob like no one else. He was as old as Rusty. He might know where Rusty would have taken them. I needed to find him. I grumbled and whined, making Kalki worry.

What’s wrong, boy? What happened?

I looked at her and whined, but I knew she wouldn’t understand, and that only made me anxious. I had to find the cat, but it was night outside. It didn’t matter. I pushed open the door and ran to the gate and started fumbling with the mechanism as if I knew what I was doing.

The gate remained closed.

Kalki came after me, but I ran back inside as the door opened and tried to go out from the way we had come. It was dark inside and I slipped and collided with the heavy wooden counter. It didn’t matter. I scratched the shutter like it was the end of days and Kalki got upset.

Stop it, you moron. You will attract someone!

I understood she called me a bad word, but-but the cat, my pack!

Stop!

I didn’t hear her. Then she clapped and the sharp noise pierced my ears like a thorn. I whimpered and stared at her wide-eyed and scared. What if the cat was dead? What if—

Come down! Kalki pointed a finger to the floor. I followed feeling dejected. I looked back at the shutter and sighed, but she clamped my mouth shut before I could bark. I whined, but it had no effect on her.

Aren’t you a good boy? She asked. My nod made her wide-eyed, but it only caused her to rub my head. Then stop barking. She continued. Barking is bad. You can’t do it.

My tail wagged when she talked like that, with a voice all stuffed up and nasally. She kissed my forehead and asked me to follow her if I wanted treats. I did, but we had only taken a few steps when I heard something. I looked over my shoulder.

What, now? Kalki asked when I stopped moving. And then the sound came again. This time loud enough that she heard it too, and froze where she stood. It had come from the shutter and was exactly the same as when I was scratching it, just louder and deeper, and coming from the other side, the outside.

She looked at me, horrified. What was that? She whispered.

I thought it was gone when the sound didn’t come for a few seconds, but then whatever it was banged on the shutter and we knew things had just gone south.