Apocalypse Pack

Strays and Creek Cat

Something is very wrong. I haven't seen any humans in weeks, and neither have Strait or Az. 
My name is Scully, and I'm the leader of a pack of stray dogs in a city humans call Austin. We're a very small group consisting of three girls, including myself, and we live in an area that's pretty close to a human nest. It's near a park, hidden behind many fallen trees and branches. Humans come by now and again, walking along a nearby path and only rarely sparing a glance at our den-but we haven't seen any in over a month. We haven't even seen any dogs or cats owned by them. I was mulling over this fact again when suddenly, I heard Strait barking-she's a bit crazy, and also pretty dumb. Whenever she starts yelling, I tend to ignore her-but this time, I feel compelled to go check on her. I push through some fallen branches and head over to the source of the barking-she's standing at the very edge of our home, which overlooks a long-dry creek. It's a long way down-not high enough a fall to kill you (unless you land on your head), but high enough to break something. "Scully! Scully! Az, can you hear me? Scully, come here!" She yelled. She's a black-furred Greyador with a white underbelly and a white tail tip, as well as white paws. She's fairly skinny, but fast as all hell-in contrast to me, a brown German shepherd-shorthaired pointer mix that's bulky, but slower. "What the hell, Strait?" "Look! Look down there!" She moved aside for me so that I could take a closer look over the edge. Heights always make me nervous-one small misstep and you go tumbling down. On top of the white rocks below, I see...
A cat.
It's rare to see them all the way down there-in the woods, they come by a lot, but they don't stay in the middle of the dry creek-there's no reason to. You can get to the other side in a minute, but this one...
It's acting extremely weirdly, and something about it looks...Off. It's limping, and I can hear it meowing-it sounds so scratchy and guttural. Its coat is all mottled and messy, and it keeps shaking, walking in a short circle, and stumbling. Then suddenly, it threw up blood. "Ew! Scully did you-" She turned to me, eyes wide and ears back, and I growled softly at her. "Shush. Something's obviously not right, and I think we shouldn't alert it to our presence." 
"But I've been barking and it hasn't even looked up..." She crouched down to look at it closer, her tail beginning to tuck. "Shush, Strait." I stayed standing-I felt as though if I crouched, I could slip and fall and end up right next to it-and continued to watch the strange cat. It continued walking, meowing that weird meow and moving very slowly to the eastern side of the dried creek. I don't like this one bit-something bad will happen and we really should leave, but Strait and Az might put up a fuss-they're both like big puppies, stubborn and dumb and weak and pathetic. Besides, I'm curious about this weird little feline, too.

Speaking of Az, I hear her coming now. She came up behind us, panting. "Hey guys, what's up? What're yall looking at?" She moved to the available space besides us and peered down. "Weird cat down there. Is that what you're all looking at?" I hate her-she's irritating and dumb, like all Golden Retrievers, but she's big and very helpful in hunting-too helpful to just up and get rid of. Besides, Strait likes her, and they sometimes play together, keeping them both off my nerves. "Shush," I said. I didn't want it to notice us-but then again, cats are normally quite perceptive, and this one should've heard us by now. "Something's very wrong here." We sat in silence at te edge, watching it move along. Then suddenly...
Its leg fell off. The cat dragged it over a rock, and then it tore itself away from the body, bones and all. On top of that, there was hardly any blood-far less than the blood it had thrown up earlier.
Strait screamed out a howl, and the cat looked up at us at last-this cat definitely had something extremely wrong with it. One eye was looking up at us, and one slightly popped out, looking downwards and to the left. Az kept barking and barking at it, and the cat meowed an awfully hoarse hiss and began rapidly dragging itself towards us, faster than a creature in such a condition had any right to. It scraped its belly along the rough rocks, streaking them with varying amounts of blood-the edge of the ledge wasn't sheer, and could definitely be climbed up by a cat. "Strait! Az! Run, and follow me!" I cried. I bolted, forcing myself through the twigs and onto the humans' trail. It's a path made of concrete-not one that they use their cars on, but one that they simply walk on. They seem to use it to enjoy the nature. The other two didn't need to be told twice- I heard them right behind me. Any other time I would've been worried about running into humans, but I could care less about them right now-we needed to run. I turned to follow the path, and we ran that way for a while-and then we turned right again into another stretch of the woods. These were far thinner, and you could see the homes of humans on the horizon-around two stories, with decent-sized backyards. "Where are we going, Scully?" I heard Az bark out behind me-none of us were too tired yet, and could keep running for a while. "Somewhere-into the city!" We broke out of the thinner treeline and were at the outskirts of a human neighborhood. I looked around, and saw the start of a road a bit further off. I started heading over there-I didn't even know if the cat was still behind us or not, but I kept running-better safe than sorry. "Into the city?!" Strait yelled. "But there's humans! And they catch strays! And we'll be separated! And-" "Would you rather have an encounter with that cat?" I snapped. That shut her up real quick. After a few more minutes of running, we were on the road. There were no signs of any humans anywhere-extremely bizzare. There were cars parked here and there, but no sign of their owners. I took a moment to pause and glance back-there was no cat, but I wasn't going to stay and wait for it to catch up with us. I turned back, and began to trot forwards-It was probably quite far behind by now. Strait and Az soon followed me into the human neighborhood.

After a bit of trotting, I felt a bit more secure that the cat had been left in the dust. Az and Strait were both extremely nervous still, as was I. What the hell was wrong with that cat? I thought. It was very obviously diseased, but I've never seen a disease like that before. We rounded a corner, and then we came upon something horrifying-and something that could possibly explain away what happened to all the humans.

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fun fact: these dogs are all based off my IRL dogs except for Az, but she's still based off of a dog I once knew (but did not own)