I’m still imagining it several hours later, Dr. Stevens driving that little gold Nissan up I-75, a massive black hellhound leaning out the rear driver’s side window, tongue lolling about in the wind, smoke streaming out the side of its mouth.

Of course, that’s not the plan. That’s a horrible plan. But it’s kind of funny to imagine, so I’m trying not to snicker about it to myself as I creep toward my position about thirty yards to the north of the still-sleeping hellhounds.

The plan isn’t great, but we’re working with what we’ve got, and what we’ve got is a single rubber-padded wildlife trap and a tranquilizer gun apiece. And a quarter pound of frozen venison that I hope will thaw before nightfall. I don’t hunt, myself—well, not that kind of hunting, anyway—but I got an uncle that does, and luckily Mom still had some ground venison in the bottom of the chest freezer left over from last year.

The real difficulty in catching these hounds isn’t just that we’ve got more than one hound; it’s that we’ve got more than one hound of massively differing sizes. We can’t just set a bunch of the same traps, or load a bunch of darts with the same dose of tranquilizer, not if we hope to drive to North Carolina with four completely healthy hellhounds, which we do. So we’ve got to split them up.

That’s what the venison’s for. I’ve made my way around to the north side of the hounds, and I’m going to try to draw out the adult hound with the venison, then trap and tranq it. Dr. Stevens is on the south side of the hounds, back by the creek, with a much smaller dose of tranquilizer in her darts. She’s got a trap, too, in case she needs it, but she seemed pretty confident she can tranq all three pups as long as the adult hound ain’t around. Better her than me; my aim’s terrible.

There are so many ways this plan could go wrong, and most of them are running through my head as I set the trap and lay out my venison: the big hound doesn’t go for the bait; the pups tag along with the big hound; one or both of us runs out of tranqs; we spook the hounds and they scatter and set up camp somewhere else. The list goes on and on, and it gets louder and louder in my head the lower the sun sinks in the sky.

By the time the sun is fully set and the crickets and katydids are singing their nighttime chorus, I’ve stationed myself a good twenty yards away from the venison and the trap, semi-hidden and peeking out from behind a wide-ish pine tree.

This here’s the hardest part about monster hunting. Figuring out what you’re after’s pretty easy, most times. Planning your strategy’s not too bad, even when you’re outnumbered and underequipped like me and Dr. Stevens are now. For me, the hardest part is the waiting.

When you’re waiting, you can’t do anything but wait. You have to sit, and watch, and pay attention, things I’ve never really been too good at. I either lose focus or focus too hard—usually on stuff that’s not terribly helpful.

Like right now, I’m imagining every crack of a branch is the hound coming up behind me, not fooled by my ruse of stinking venison. Or it’s a coyote, coming to steal the venison and leave me at square one with four hungry hellhounds still on the loose.

I’m so focused on imagining scenarios where Dr. Stevens and I lose the hounds that I barely see it when it finally does approach. I catch a bit of movement through the slowly thinning wisps of smoke still hanging in the air, and then I look up and see the hound.

I should have expected it, but the size of the thing still manages to catch me off guard. It’s way bigger than the biggest wolf I’ve ever seen—maybe as big as a mule, even. It moves slowly and quietly across the charred ground, sniffing as it goes.

It’s hard to tell in the dark, but it looks like it’s around ten yards away from the trap, moving quickly towards it. Time slows, and I have to remind myself to breathe as I watch the giant hound get closer and closer to the bait.

Then I hear the quiet snap of the trap, and a high-pitched yip and a whine.

Then, the hound rears back its head and howls.