She slammed flat against the water. Swamp swallowed her. Stunned, Mahlia tried to swim for the surface. The dog-face was coming for her. No time no time no time. She surfaced, gasping. The monster was fifteen feet away.

Mahlia thrashed through the weeds, fleeing, but it was like fighting through molasses. The monster leaped and crashed down beside her. A wave of swamp water threw her off her feet. Coughing and retching, she tried to stand. The dog-face loomed. She was surprised to see that it already had Mouse, one huge fist wrapped in the red tangles of his hair.

With an easy swipe, the monster collected her as well. Mahlia tried to scream but the half-man shoved her down into the swamp. Mahlia fought, but it was like a mountain was sitting on her.

I’m going to drown.

With a tooth-rattling jerk, the half-man yanked her up again. Air and sunlight. The flash of tree leaves. She tried to get a breath but the monster sank her again. Slime and hot muddy water jammed down her throat, up her nose. Her face hit mud.

Mahlia flailed at the dog-face’s fist, trying to pry free. It was like fighting concrete. The monster didn’t care what she did.

Unbidden, Mahlia remembered seeing a squad of soldier boys drown a puppy. They’d taken turns holding it down with one hand as it fought and shook. Then they’d let it up to breathe, so they could laugh at it, before sinking it again. She was a toy, she realized. A kill toy for a monster.

The half-man jerked her out of the water again. Mahlia sucked air, coughing and retching. Mouse was still underwater. His hands poked up from the depths, waving like desperate reeds.

The creature’s massive pit-bull skull loomed close. Scars and torn flesh. Animal and human, crushed together in one nightmare beast. Ropy gray scar tissue covered one eye, but the other eye was wide open, rabid and yellow, big as an egg. The monster growled, revealing rows of sharp teeth. A gust of blood and carrion washed over her.

“I am not meat,” it snarled. “You are meat.”

Mahlia pissed herself. Urine streamed down her legs. She didn’t feel shame. Didn’t feel anything except terror. She wasn’t a person anymore. Just prey. It was as if the monster had cut her open and spilled out her guts. She was nothing. Dead already, even if her heart still pounded. Prey for other bigger, stronger animals. Just like all the civvies she’d seen gunned down as she’d fled the Drowned Cities. Mouse was still thrashing underwater, but he was dead, too. He just didn’t know it.

Do something.

A joke. They were no match for this monster. Grown soldiers with guns and machetes died like flies before half-men.