Threnody (004).

(This is a 300-word-a-day novel project)

At first she thought it might be a dog, sickly and weak, trembling as it staggered out of the snow, but as it came closer she gagged, smelling it, her stomach turning at the tumors that broke through it short-haired hide, and the vestigial legs that dangled obscenely from its hindquarters. Whatever it was, it was no dog – it’s snout ended in a rounded bulb, the tender flesh there peeling and diseased, and its ears were more like those of a horse, short and bell-shaped, both cones directed at her as the beast watched her pitifully, shaking and mewling softly. It came slowly forward, cataract eyes blinking in the snow.

Go! Jesse shooed at it with trembling hands. Go away!

The creature hesitated and tried again, bleating softly to her in a diseased note, head low while it crept towards her again, and Jesse retreated, walking backwards and looking for a rock or a stick to drive the thing away from her, a white blur of motion came out of the gloomy edges of her periphery, striking the fawn in a brilliant rain of blood that sprayed across the snow field. Jesse’s eyes widened, trembling as the thing came to rest in a crouch fifty feet away: it was like a bear, massive and barrel shaped, covered in tangled white fur that turned to pink and then red around its snout as it feasted, black-dagger teeth tearing into the carcass in great bites and slicing open the vitals with long, equally dark talons. It’s head was anvil-shaped, twin dark blue orbs glaring at its feast from under a deep brow ridge that become a hood, the fan of its neck muscles straining as it feasted, shifting its weight, flanks of muscle rippling as it did so under its silver skin.