Her arms pumped in rhythm with her step. It was a brief reminder of what had happened with her shoulder the night before, but it was nothing but a stinging afterthought, and certainly nothing she couldn’t handle. The closer they became, the harder she ran. In the back of her mind she was waiting for her body to give out, for her to slow down and take a couple minutes to double over and breathe raspy breaths in her desert-dry lungs. It never came, though.

“Feral,” she answered, her eyes dead-set ahead of her. “Not like that lady was last night, though. It’s different. It stinks.”

Carly took them around a block, then behind an old Chinese store. At the sight of the alley, she paced herself, then came to a slow halt at the mouth. In broad daylight, something rummaged through the large dumpster, sick wafting in the air.

“There,” she murmured quietly. 

Then, as if on cue, a head popped out. A flesh-rippling growl emanated from the deep throat (or, throats) of the savage dog. Its skin looked as if it’d been peeled away, revealing thick cords of wet and bloody muscle, though the meat looked rotten. Holes clipped the ears of the beast, and its eyes were white, speckles of maggot burrows on its face. In a couple of seconds, leapt up and out, revealing steroid muscles and cankerous infection all across its body. Carly could smell it from where she stood.