A curse exploded from her lips as she tripped, falling roughly to the ground and skinning her right knee. Even as she was scrambling to her feet, the dog leapt over her back unleashing a fierce growl. The answering growl sounded like it was rumbling up from the deepest pits of Hell. Kiro stood her ground, growling, until Charlie had her feet beneath her again and was once more running through the thick brush as fast as her legs would carry her.

Behind the pair there was a boom as a tree snapped beneath the force of the creature they were fleeing. Kiro was running flat out, as fast as her long legs would carry her. She stayed just ahead of Charlie, her white form flashing through the darkness like a guiding light. She was fighting for breath, her curses running like a cadence in her mind because she no longer had the wind to make a sound.

Her backpack caught on a branch and she stumbled again. She could swear that she felt the creature breathing down her neck. Kiro slowed down, keeping pace with Charlie. The woodland came to an end abruptly and dumped the pair on a grassy downward slope leading to a gravel road. Again, Charlie tripped, tumbling down the small slope, slipping on frost slicked grass, and skidding into the gravel. Left or right, left or right, left or right.

In the moment, she couldn’t remember which. Chest heaving the woman paused. Kiro, skidding around to face the edge of the forest, her hackles bristling and a feral growl rumbling deep in her chest. After a breath, she glanced back over her shoulder at Charlie, waiting for direction. They could hear something still crashing through the underbrush. It hadn’t burst out onto the moon drenched grass yet, the woman hadn’t gotten a clear look at it in the forest and she certainly didn’t want to now.

Left would have to do. “Kiro.” Charlie croaked as she took off running again. The dog was with her immediately, running at her side, between the woman and the forest. Over the sound of shoes on the gravel and ragged breathing, Charlie couldn’t hear the creature in the forest anymore. She wasn’t even sure it was still after them.

Dawn was still a long way off and so was civilization. There was no way Charlie could keep running for much longer, she was beyond winded and every stride seemed slower than the last. Kiro seemed like she could run for days, her stride was easy and free. Of course the woman was slowing her down. She wasn’t in great shape before the End and the last month hadn’t exactly turned her into a runner.

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She slowed to a jog, trying to catch her breath. There weren’t supposed to be monsters on Earth and from what she could tell, that was definitely a monster. Big, gleaming teeth and too many limbs. Too many damn limbs.

Before the End, even this small midwestern town would have given off enough light to be seen against the horizon from miles away. Now there was only darkness. She had never been an outdoorswoman, she had gone camping a time or two every summer, but beyond that she wasn’t really the adventurous type. Fishing and hunting weren’t skills she had laid claim to before the End, but she had been trying to rectify that. Charlie had read somewhere that fish were more active at dawn and dusk. She was only out this early to try and take advantage of that.

Now, of course, her fishing gear was laying down by the backwater. There was no way in hell she’d be going back for it anytime soon.

One of Kiro’s ears flicked toward the treeline and the woman quickened her step. It must still be in there, stalking us from the shadows. she shuddered. Her breath was coming more easily, though her limbs felt heavy now and she knew she wouldn’t have much more run in her if it came down to it. She could only hope that she had picked the right direction. This gravel road should dump her off onto the county road near the Walmart. In the predawn dim, it was hard to see any real distance and it felt like an eternity of uncertainty before that county road finally materialized out of the shadows.

The parking lot looked almost like a pasture filled with giant sleeping animals. The cars hadn’t moved since the End and it was unlikely that they would any time soon. Nothing with a ‘brain’ worked anymore. Electricity was gone. It hadn’t been much more than a hundred years since electricity had first been created and now it was gone and nearly every modern comfort with it.

She wove through the cars and around to the side door of the building. She let Kiro through the door first and into the darkened building. As Charlie slipped into the building, she looked one last time at the darkened woods.She couldn’t see anything moving through the ranks of trees, but now that she knew there was something in there, she couldn’t shake the feeling that it was watching her