Old Sewer-Man

The sun was finally shining, after three weeks of grey rain on the shattered stones of the city. Mother's children crept out to play in the street, though they knew they weren't supposed to. They wandered up and down past the blank fronts of the houses, pulling out stems of grass that grew in the widening cracks of the asphalt. The older kids nipped off the tender edges and spat the coarse fibers out onto the ground, while their siblings tried to imitate them. The youngest of all, their baby sister, kept getting splinters of green stuck on her tongue and constantly sputtered as she tried to get the rough pieces out of her mouth. Every now and then she set up a wail and plopped down on the ground to paw at her face. She wouldn't stop until one of the others came over and muttered comfortingly, and then she calmed down.
The city was strangely silent that day. Even in the midst of cold splattering rain, the long legged birds had walked and sang, making sounds like clattering wood. It was strange that they were not around. They had flown away that morning, as soon as their feathers had dried sufficiently to keep them warm in the winds of the sky. The younger children did not care much about the birds, but the absence of any other creature irked the older ones, who were accustomed to sneaking up and trying to catch the clacking singers, who usually took off in a flurry of feathers. It made them nervous, too, to have no comforting, familiar animals about. Especially because of the noise.
The noise had frightened the birds away in the morning. It was a clanging, scraping noise that echoed hollowly down the streets, interspersed with weak, shrill yells, like a feral cat too sick to move but with enough breath to complain. Then it had stopped. The children had first been scared of it, and went inside to hide around their mother's legs, but she did not like that much and pushed them back out again. In the way of children, their fear was replaced with curiosity once the noise disappeared. Without the terrifying immediacy of the discordant, gong-like sounds, the older children felt quite brave and enterprising indeed.
Now they were on the street, in the shining sun, looking for the source of the noise. The two oldest sauntered along, investigating the rubbish that drifted across the road in places, while the others bounced beside them in a sort of absent-minded leapfrog. The littlest had given up on grassblades and was now dragging along bits of dusty vine or strangely shaped bits of metal, discarding one thing only to pick up the next oddity to catch her eye. She was beginning to tire, however, and as they turned the corner onto another empty street she let out a pitiful little mewl to indicate her exhaustion. Her older brothers and sisters eyed eachother with exasperation, but sat down where they were while she smugly trotted up to the oldest and collapsed against his side. He shifted uncomfortably, trying to move her so her head did not stick so uncomfortably into his ribs, but gave up after she threatened to start wailing again.
She didn't get to rest for long. They hadn't been sitting for more than a minute when the noise started up again, nearly beneath their feet. They leapt up as a whole and rushed across the street. The little one got grabbed by the scruff of her neck and dragged along, away from the source of the noise: a corroded grill that covered a huge cement tube, which sloped down into the ground. It was an entrance to the sewers. A shadowy shape stood behind the rusty metal, emitting groans at intervals. A horrible noise emanated from the grill, too; the same clamor of metal being hit and scraped with great force that had filled the streets in the morning. The children crowded against the ruined wall of the house across the road, the older ones standing tense and ready to attack, while the other ones cowered behind them.
A final discordant note rang out from the grill. Then it fell outward. It hit the ground and lay quivering in a shower of rust, while the clangorous sound reverberated up and down the street. The shadowy figure stepped out, and the children drew back with involuntary horror. It was some sort of monstrous creature, many times their height. It was even taller than their mother, though it was far thinner, and balanced on spindly legs. It had practically no hair, only a terribly pale wisp of fur that half ringed its eyes. Its first step towards them was firm, but as the light hit its strange flat face it whimpered and staggered into the shade. It flailed ineffectually with limbs almost as long as its legs. Once the children got over their initial fright, they found the creature more pathetic than frightening. They didn't dare approach it--not yet--but they did begin to slink away from the wall and towards the street that led to their home.
The creature from the sewer did not even seem to notice them. It was gazing around itself, making noises like the baby made when she got scraped on the leg. The children escaped without trouble. The oldest paused, however, while the rest of the pack ran home, and watched the sewer thing swivel its pale head in his direction...
It showed no fear of him at all, which was rather amazing. After all, most of the creatures in the sewer knew he would kill them if he could. But then, if humans had disappered entirely ten years ago, when he first sought refuge in the dark damp of the sewer system, whole generations of animals would have grown up without fear. Now this thing here seemed rather like a dog, though it had bizarre purplish fur and a sort of frill running along its skull. It was watching him, almost like it was a pet dog from before, as if it knew its role in things...
Now he heard the quiet click of claws on the rough stone road, and his ears perked up as he recognized the smell of his mother. He wagged his tail briefly, realizing what her presence meant. The clacking birds were difficult to catch, and there were many children; this sewer-creature did not look difficult to take down, even if it was tall. And they would be safer, without some bizarre, alien creature wandering in their city.