Dog leap

Childs took a step back toward Macready, his attention torn between his two companions. The dog continued to change. It had grown larger and darker. Suddenly it leaped, though no dog could possibly jump twenty feet in that clinging snow.

Childs reacted instinctively as the thing attacked the fallen Macready. He opened the flow to the torch. A stream of fire hit the dog-thing in mid-leap. The violence of the blast knocked it head over heels backward, a flaming ball of fur. And something else.

The animal was howling in pain, making a sound no dog ever made, a high-pitched screeching that reminded Macready of fingernails dragging down a blackboard.