Purple Scent

The familiar purple scent I could clearly smell lingered on my nose, which alarmed me. I stood up abruptly from the chair made out of scrap woods from nearby houses, which made an annoying scratching sound. "They are here.", I announced to myself, cue to the distant flocking and thuds from above. I took steps forward on the mounted periscope on the ceiling of the basement, connected above to the mail post. I quietly peeked and observed outside. I should be safe from here, since the whole basement is made as fallout shelter. The ceiling is made out of thick cement, and the only entrance is from the backyard. I peeked through the lens of the periscope and turned it carefully from left to right. Just like any other days, few of them flew around. When I turned it back to the left, I noticed an incoming vehicle, and out of all vehicles, it was a rowdy monster truck. "Who the heck are they?" I murmured. There's no way they wouldn't hear that. Even I can hear the rumbling engine of the monster truck. How did they even get here without getting killed? "Oh, no, no, no." I shook my head in dismay and distress, once the monster truck stopped on the house across mine. And out of all places, it's around my house, just meters from mine, even. I took my cross bow and went to the backside of the basement and ascended on the metal ladder attached on the entrance of the fallout shelter. The entrance of the fallout shelter was too exposed on the backyard so I needed to create a camouflage to cover it. Nothing much, just bushes and twigs that could hide me when I get out. I collected them from the other houses. Although there's no other human alive around the city⁠—as far as I know⁠—I still feel like I would hear screaming lawn owners with shovels held over their heads ready to throw at me. Although they couldn't smell or see, their hearing is as sharp as knives. I sniffed and cannot smell them around, which meant no one might be possibly around the backyard. I trust my sense more than anything else. I cautiously made my way out. I settled the crossbow on my hand and loaded an arrow from the arrow bin slung around me. If that creatures stayed any longer, it won't be too long for them to discover my place. I peeked behind the bushes and saw three of them aiming for their prey. Two figures went out from the monster truck, making the creatures move, with dead silence. How could they have not seen those creatures? I called them Violet Harpies. Skin as pale as ghost and as dry as stick. Their hairs that had shed from their scalp that looked like drought in the summer. Chests flattened and n*****s gone as if it was never there. Eyes covered with layers of skin but the eyeballs still bulged from under. Their nose were covered like how their eyes were. As I had remembered, they breathe through mouth. They have wings connected to their arms made out of flesh and bones, but without feathers. Their DNA weren't strong enough to produce feathers, but the wings were enough to lift them up to fly, but not as high as how the birds could reach and not as long as the birds could hold. Their feet were like those of birds', claws as sharp as tigers'. Their private area were covered with layers of skins as well, so it's not too awkward if your eyes ever looked down. You know, weird eye instinct. It looked exactly like a person covered with prosthetics for a movie. I took the chance to run towards the bungalow beside the house where the two strangers were. Suddenly like jaguars slowly watching their prey, they started to gather around the oblivious petite and tall guys. When they were about to jump towards the two strangers, I shot one of them and it fell on the ground with a thud. The two strangers were surprised, so they went back inside the truck as three of Violet Harpies flew towards me, the rest started to attack the monster truck. There's an approaching slope, so I slid back down facing them, aiming at each of the Violet Harpies. I rolled and gained my balance shortly to see that only one was left flying, following me behind with an arrow stuck to its side. I ran as fast as I could and about to get an arrow but to my surprise, there's nothing left on the bin. I heaved out an exasperated sigh and cursed under my breath. It must have fallen when I was sliding down the slope. Probably not a good idea to slide down backwards. Not gonna do that again. Few gunshots were heard not too far from me, and I bet my pinky finger it's either of the two strangers. For the meantime, I started to run with heavy breaths and managed to pick out a sharp straight branch from a tree I've just passed by. I loaded it on my crossbow and halted, turned around aiming for the incoming Violet Harpy. If this won't work, I'll be dead. I aimed for the head but being the clumsy me, I missed. This one was flying fast. I muttered thread of curses and covered my head with my arms and ducked to the ground, ready for the Violet Harpy to come and get me. Soon, a loud crying shot of gun was heard, followed by a thud few feet from me. I looked around and found the Violet Harpy lying on the ground, lifeless. I looked up and found the familiar monster truck above the slope near the road, the door opened to spit out a guy's bewildered face. He's one of the guys with the monster truck. I immediately climbed up, pissed. "Why did you fire your gun?! Not once, but eleven⁠—" I paused and looked down the slope to see the lifeless Harpy, "no, twelve times!" I yelled at him. Confused, he scoffed, "Excuse me? You should thank me for saving you.", he grinned proudly with the emphasis to the "me". "Well, thank you." I sarcastically said. "You just brought us more in danger." I rolled my eyes. I bumped him by the shoulder and went inside the monster truck, sitting on the driver's seat. "Hey, hey, hey! What are you doing?" he yelled. Leaning, I opened the other door and yelled, "Just get inside!" I demanded. He didn't speak and jumped inside and closed the door with a puff of his cheeks. Kid. Frustrated, I drove off immediately far away from the place in a different route, where I knew would be safer. I don't even know if there's a "safer" place. My definition of safer place is a place Violet Harpies would find hard to find in a range of time. The two of them stared at me confusingly and asked, "Where are we going?", I stopped the car and parked on a secluded and closed alley behind establishments and removed the key to stop the engine. "You guys are just clueless idiots!" I whisper-yelled. "Why are you outside at this hour? It's the time they're out to hunt." I rolled my eyes in frustration and threw the keys at them, which the younger one successfully caught. "We just got from the nearest city. Since the epidemic has spread, we didn't leave our house. But hey, nothing lasts forever, not even food.", the youngest explained. He was wearing an over-sized sweater and a trouser, unlike the other guy beside me who wore plain black shirt tucked into his pants. "Just as I thought." I sighed. "We have to stay here until tomorrow morning. We can't go back there, they knew we'll go back there." "You must knew a lot about them.", the other one said, his hair was long enough to stuck his round eyes. I nodded, "I just know about them.", I simply said and laid my head back on the seat. Of course I know about Violet Harpies⁠—I mean, I should⁠—about everything, even the trivial things about them. Because I am the one who discovered about them, and I may have been the reason why they existed.