"What about the car?" I wondered out loud.

Jared clicked his tongue, "Oh yeah, I almost forgot about that. We don't want anyone taking that, do we?" he instinctively brought his left arm up to scratch his head, staring at the stump with a hollowed expression once he realized, "Hmm... I guess our best bet is to just park it behind the house. Maybe we can cover it up with some of the blankets."

I nodded, "Sounds like a good idea. I'll go do it right away."

I took the keys and went outside into the storm. The rain was still coming down at the same rate, the sky was still black, the wind was still howling.

Nothing had changed. Three constant days of rain. Already it was flooded in a few spots on the road and grass. How long would it last? Would the storm move away from us?

I got into the car. The storm had moved across Canada and the states fairly quickly, but now it was lingering here for some reason. There was something deep inside of me telling me that it would never go away... That this was our reality now.

I pulled the car up behind the house, next to the basement window, got out and draped the blankets over it, weighing them down with rocks. I took one last look at it, and as I did, I saw something between the bushes and the trees about twenty feet away.

It was a dog. The dog I had seen in the city. I could barely make out its feature from where I stood, all I could really make out was its eyes, snout and shape. Did it follow us all the way here? Weird.

Maybe I could get it to come in with us, I thought. Aaron always wanted a dog and it would make for a nice way to spend the time. It would make for a good guard, too.

I tried to lure it over to me by clapping my hands together and on my knees, "Come here buddy!"

It just kept staring.

"Come on over here, I won't hurt you!"

The dog stepped away from the bushes and came closer to me, letting me see it a bit more clearly.

There was something... off... about it that I couldn't quite put my finger on. It appeared to be missing hair in quite a few spots, and there was something about the way its body was shaped that almost unnerved me. I just assumed it was an emaciated stray, most dogs that you see nowadays are in rough shape like that anyway.

However, it did something that made me quickly discard that theory.

The dog... stood up.

I thought that I had just finally completely lost it. I had to have been dreaming. I pinched myself, but the pain was real. I was awake.

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The dog stood up, and there was something about the way it stood that seemed almost human. As I stared in disbelief, I could finally make out more of its features in detail. In the place of paws, it had human feet and human hands. No... that wasn't quite right. They still had the vague shape of paws, but... they also extended into almost finger-like shapes or... I...

It felt like my brain was malfunctioning.

Its form seemed to be both humanoid and beast-like at the same time. Its body shape was that of a dog, and yet the way it held itself looked like a human trapped in a dog's body, like someone had been shoved inside of a dog. Like it was trying to stand like a human, but couldn't.

The more I stared, the less I seemed to understand what was standing just a few feet in front of me.

I then noticed that it was staring right into my eyes.

Its eyes undoubtedly had a human intelligence to them, and yet, there was a sense of bestial ferocity barely contained beneath the surface.

Its face... it actually physically hurt to look at its face. I couldn't tell if it was the face of a human or a dog. Every time I blinked, I swear it looked different. It looked deformed, not quite like a dog's face; more like a dog wearing a human mask that was grafted to its face, covered in dog fur. But then if you looked at in a different way, it looked more like the other way around.

We locked eyes for what must have at least been a full minute. Staring, both of us unmoving.

Then, the beast let out a wild howl, gave me one last stare, then slowly and deliberately turned around and walked away, still on two legs.

I ran so fast I nearly tripped with every step, back into the house, locked the door behind me and wildly started tossing as many things as I could find up against the door to barricade it. I sprinted into the basement and grabbed the hammer, nails and some planks of wood.

"Markus, what's wrong?" Jared called to me as I ran back up the stairs.

I climbed over the barricade, put one of the planks against the door and wildly hammered the nails in.

"Markus!" Jared was coming up the stairs. By the time he was behind me, I had already finished barricading the door.

"Markus, what's wrong? What happened?" he asked me, a worried expression on his face. But I didn't hear him. I just kept tossing as much as I could in front of the door.

"Markus!" he grabbed me by the shoulder and shook me.

"J-Jared I, I, I, saw..." I stammered. My teeth were clacking, I could barely speak, "S-Saw... dog... standing... had human hands... howled... walked away..."

His eyes widened. I don't think he fully understood what I had said, but my panicked state told him enough. Without pressing me further, he started to help barricade the house.

By the end of the day we had succeeded in barricading every door and window, and completely sealed off the basement. We put so much stuff in front of the door on both ends that something would have to really try to get in. At the very least, nothing would be able to sneak in without making a ton of noise.

"So, what did you see?" Jared asked.

Though I had calmed down by then, I was still very taken aback by what I had seen. I told him about what had happened; his eyes were wide the entire time.

"Well... what the hell? It's just one crazy thing after another, isn't it?"

"I think it's safe to say now that there's more things lurking out there in the storm, things we can't even imagine..."

Jared shook his head, "What the hell man. What are these things? How are they all connected to each other? That sadistic fucker we killed, the huge thing and now a human dog or something..." he laughed sarcastically, "It feels like I'm dreaming. None of this seems real... everything is..." he went to put his hands up to his face, shaking for a second when he saw his severed arm, then covered half of his face with his remaining hand, "Hey, Markus... I'm not dreaming am I? This is real life, right? I'm awake, aren't I?"

I sighed, staring out the window at the torrential rain, "Unfortunately... we're all awake."

He laughed again and shook his head, "...God damn it."