Caught Out with a Corpse

It would be quicker to go through town but Grims didn't want to carry the corpse through the streets of Eggtown South. He already had a reputation, hard and bitter, but there was a difference between being rumored as a child-killer and toting a dead one down main street, even if it was a Korpsky. Though it would be harder to lose the mooncats, he swept eastward across the shrouded rock dunes.

As he crossed the wideness of the tenth dip in the ground, a yowl and a hiss broke close behind him. He let the corpse slide off his shoulder. It thudded to the ground. Spinning, he skip-bounced back two paces.

Three mooncats were pacing him but paused at the the kid's body, their flat faces trying to follow both scents. A little larger than good sized dogs, their hair was short and bristled in rough tufts of black and gray fur except for a sickly green crescent moon on their back. Ears curved back, sharp as devil's horns and tails, more rat than cat, whipped back and forth.

The first one leaped at him with a yowl.