At our front door was an axe-carrying middle-aged man surrounded by a veritable sea of dogs, the same one I’d seen down the road earlier. As soon as he saw me peek out a window, he gave me a thumbs-up and turned to leave.

I flung open the door, only realizing afterward what a potentially awful idea that was. I didn’t even have my armor on! Too late now, though.

“Wait!” I yelled. “Please, come inside for a minute.”

He looked surprised to see me open my door. “Alright. But only for a minute. I’ve got places to be.”

His troop of animals followed him in, a friendly golden jumping up to lick my face. I raised my hands out of easy reach and tried to step backward. “Down, down!” I said. The golden ignored me.

“Sorry, she ain’t mine,” the man said. “Or, at least, she weren’t before today.” His words were sympathetic, but his face held an expression of derision as I tried to put some distance between myself and the dogs. Some of them had bounded past me toward Gavin and Cassie. I kept an eye on that, but both kids were giggling and the dogs near them had wagging tails; it was probably okay for now.

“It’s… okay,” I said. “Sorry, I’m allergic. The more I handle them, the more I’ll start to sneeze and itch. How are you controlling them, anyway? Do you have some sort of ability for it?”

My explanation didn’t seem to evoke much sympathy or understanding. “Nope. Just heard the neighbor’s dog barking last night and realized no one had been home to feed him. Went out to pick him up this morning and decided to check out another home I knew had a dog. Just sorta… kept going. Someone had to.”

“But… why are they following you?”

“I fed ‘em. Look, lady, I gotta get going. I’ve got half the neighborhood still to go through, and a lot of animals ain’t been fed.”

He turned to leave and I grabbed his arm. “Wait, please! I know things about what’s happening to us, and we need to tell everyone. If you’re going around anyway, do you think you can hand some notes out to people?”

I still had all of the notes Priya had written for me, so I snatched them off the wagon and pressed the stack into his hands. He scanned them and looked up at me.

“What’s this? Abilities improve each other?”

I explained and his expression grew friendly for the first time.

“Well, that’s some mighty fine information there. I took that Healin’ Touch to fix up my Lacey here after she took a bad hit, and it plumb tuckered me out.” He gestured toward a gray pit bull sitting docile at his feet. “Took Force Shield when I got enough points, and it’s been real helpful for keeping the pups safe, but my percentages only say 110%. Definitely something to consider.”

“I’m surprised only one of them was injured, even with your force shield,” I said.

The man looked at me like I was an idiot, and I looked at the animals again, some of whom had gone over to cuddle Gavin and Cassie. Looking more carefully, I could see that in fact many of them bore bandages, and there was a miniature collie huddling behind our visitor who wasn’t putting any weight on its front right leg.

“Oh,” I said, feeling stupid.

The man took pity on me. “I’ve been doctoring them up with what I’ve found in the houses. I’m a vet down at Pets Furst. You ain’t wrong, though. They woulda been cut up much worse if those weird monsters actually went for them straight off. But no, dumb things just charge straight at me like the dogs don’t exist. They’ll only go for ‘em after the dogs have already bitten them or such.”

“They’re called leafenrats,” said Gavin.

“Oh are they?” the man asked, tone amused.

“Yes. I called them that.”

I made a spur-of-the-moment decision… Micah might feel better soon, but it was getting to be the middle of the day. That wasn’t something to mess around with in Alabama. We’d wait and go out again later in the afternoon. “Gavin, do you want to use your healing on some of his puppy dogs? I don’t want you to wipe yourself out, but it’s okay if you get a little tired.”

“You’ve got a healing ability too?” Our visitor was delighted, picking up the injured collie. “If you could help this fella out, I’d appreciate it.” He paused a moment to check its tag, reading the name with an air of uncertainty. “Sir Fluffbutt here was a real brave dog. Got in between me and one of your, uh, leafenrats that was ‘bout twice as tall as he was. I think he might have a busted shinbone and he’s having a real rough time keepin’ up with the rest of us.”

Gavin reached out toward the collie, who whined uncertainly and tried to move away from his touch. The man spoke gently to the dog and guided Gavin’s hand to its back. Moments later, Gavin gave him a thumbs up. “All done!”

The man looked skeptically at Gavin, but set down Sir Fluffbut, who took a few hesitant steps before racing around in a circle, tail wagging.

“Well, would you look at that. What was your name? Gavin? Gonna have to call you Dr. Gavin. You can come work at my vet’s office any day.”

Gavin’s chest puffed up with pride. “I can heal even more! I can heal all your dogs, I bet.”

His boast was a bit overblown, but he did manage to take care of a nasty bite on another dog’s nose and help a little bit with another dog’s cut paw before announcing he was feeling pretty tired. The man was grateful, singing Gavin’s praises.

“Can’t believe he could heal so much at once! More than I can do. Gonna have to copycat your ability choices there, Dr. Gavin. That okay?”

Our guest didn’t stick around long, however. He refused an offer of a drink for himself and his pets, saying they’d just found a few cases of bottled water.

When he was almost out the door, one more thought struck me. “Any people you meet and give information to, ask them to try to meet tomorrow morning at the neighborhood playground.”

“The playground? Why’s that?” His tone was curious, respectful, a big change from the irritated man who had first walked through my door.

“I’m guessing those dogs you’ve been rescuing aren’t the only problems in our neighborhood. A lot of people are probably in bad shape, but maybe not all of them have to be. I can’t be the only one with information to share, either. If we can get everyone in one place and talking to each other, that’s going to be a lot more effective than passing information around piecemeal. Plus, if everyone heads over at once, we’ll have lots of people out clearing the monsters. It’ll make for a safer trip.”

He thought about this. “Makes sense. Alright. I’ll be there. Can’t promise anyone else will, but I’ll make the suggestion.”

“That’s all I can ask,” I said.

He nodded, and quickly ushered his pack of dogs out the door.

I poured a small amount of water on a washcloth to scrub off my face and took an allergy pill. I knew which direction he’d come from, so when the kids and I went out this afternoon, we hit the houses he’d already passed before getting to us. We’d go door to door up Russet Road, trying to share information and invite people to the meetup. I didn’t know how far we’d get, but all we could do was our best.