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She launched herself at the meat, in a running leap that hurled her up at the window, the thick arm and shoulders in her jaws, and she had pulled the meat right out and down into the garden in one brief explosion of violence. The meat thrashed, still screaming, and she bit down, tasting the salt rush of blood.

The boy frowned. As he had been looking out at the road, he had had a strange feeling, as if something was watching him; something just out of sight. It made him squirm with discomfort, and he thought of drawing the curtains, even though he was sure there was nothing out there. Maybe it was his aunt spying on him, he thought – but then he could hear his aunt moving around in the next room, and opening the window. No doubt she was still doing her never-ending housework. Idly, he flipped a page of his algebra book, but the x’s and y’s seemed to swim and merge before his eyes. He squeezed them shut and rubbed them, then suddenly opened them wide and sat bolt upright. From near at hand came a scream; a scream of such terror and agony that it froze him in place with fear for a moment.

A moment later, he jumped to his feet so quickly that his chair fell over backwards with a crash. He rushed to the door, hesitated a second, and then ran into the next room, looking for his aunt. The room was empty, the window open and the curtain hanging from some of its rings, the rest ripped away. Another scream came from just outside the window, and he rushed to it to close it against whatever was outside. He reached the window, grabbed for the frame, and looked out.

In the merging of two lights he saw it; in wan moonlight and the furthest reach of the lamplight. What he saw was a dark back, crouching, and below it, a hand, clawing at the ground. He must have made a noise, because suddenly the dark shape turned and a face stared up at him.

Ten seconds later the boy was on the other side of the door to the room, with no clear idea of how he had got there. All he remembered was the face he had seen glaring up at him; a face from the depths of howling nightmares, glaring yellow eyes and huge yellow teeth dripping blood. Nothing was in his mind now except terror. And in the next moment, when he heard a heavy body thudding on the floor of the room he had just left, he turned and threw himself through the house, slamming out by the kitchen door and into the night.

He ran out on the road and toward the restaurant, where there were lights and music and people, screaming all the way.

She snarled furiously. The fury was directed at herself. She had let the meat make noise, loudly enough to attract attention. And then she had been too overtaken by bloodlust to think of dragging the meat away into the shadows. And then, if that hadn’t been enough, she had let the other meat, the one that saw her, get away.

Howling mad with fury, she slammed against the door, feeling it shiver in its frame, but it held. She was too angry and too frightened now even to notice that the door opened towards her, and that she could simply pull the handle down with her paw. Finally, she turned away and dived through the open window into the night.

She could already hear the meats coming, from the place of music and bright lights down the road. They came in their usual confused way, muddled and confused and arguing, but once they had seen the kill they would change. Yes, she knew how they would change, into a howling bloodthirsty mob in an instant. Indecisively, she swung her long heavy head to left and right and then broke into a shambling trot, away from the coming meats. She ran away from her lair, her place of safety, towards the unknown.

She had seen, long ago, one of her kind captured by the meats. They had caught him in nets and beaten him with sticks and burned him with torches until he could fight no longer; and then they had held him captive until he changed. After that it had been a simple matter to kill him. And she, helpless to rescue him, had watched in her own meat form, and had been hard pressed to keep her composure.

She heard them shouting behind her, and knew they had found the meat. They would be angry now, and frightened, and doubly dangerous because of the fear.

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