What’s a hyena doing in upstate New York? and This is no hyena—before it pounced on Glenn, who had paused, arm upraised, when the window blew in—the thing caught his extended arm in its blunt jaws and tore it off at the shoulder: the crack and snap of bone and rip of sinew combining with the jet of blood and the scream from Glenn’s throat and the growl from the thing’s, a bass roar with the shriek of a violin on top of it—the thing held Glenn’s arm dangling from its mouth like a puppy with a chew toy, then tossed the arm to one side with a flick of its head and lunged at him, while Wayne scrambled out of the way, his face blank with terror, and Jackie joined her scream to Glenn’s as the thing bulled him back against the wall and seized his head between its teeth, his voice climbing registers she wouldn’t have thought possible, surely his vocal cords would have to give out—she didn’t know how much more she could bear—the thing brought its jaws together; there was a pop and crunch like an egg surrendering to the pressure of a hand; and Glenn’s scream stopped; although Jackie’s continued, pouring out her horror at what she was watching at the top of her lungs—even when Wayne found his feet, stumbled across the living room to her, right past where the thing was busy feeding, almost slipped on a large piece of glass, took her hand, and started pulling her to the front door, which was still open, only to stop as a new sound flooded the air, a high-pitched cacophony like an orchestra out of tune, and dark shapes (who knew how many? twenty? thirty? more?) galloped up the road, almost to the end of her driveway—Wayne’s hand trembled in hers as if he were being electrocuted; later, she would understand that his mind had been on the point of breaking, some fundamental motor about to snap its belt and seize up—she was taking in breath for another scream, because it was hard to take in enough air for a long scream when you were six and a half months pregnant (courtesy of a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and the love of her life, who had just ended his life at the teeth of, of—), when Wayne’s hand stilled; she glanced at his face, and what she saw reflected there, a change from vacant-eyed terror to something else, stopped her voice—“Come on,” he said, pulling her away from the front door, across the living room (the thing growling and snapping at them, and, Oh My God Glenn), into the kitchen and the cellar door, down the stairs and across the cellar to the oil tank, with a stop at her father’s workbench to grab a rag and the box of long wooden matches Dad had had on his workbench for as long as she could remember—overhead, the floor thumped and creaked, more of the things springing into the house—Wayne consulted the gauge on top of the oil tank, and began unscrewing it—the gauge turned once, twice, then stuck—he ran back to the workbench for a wrench while above, the things whined and growled, their claws skittering on the hardwood floor—