Survivors & skins

The night had seemed dead 'fore the sound broke the hush. There! Something doth stir in the thick underbrush. THUMP, THUMP, CLOMP, CLOMP, sound its footsteps together, Then you sight the clumped fur, the thin legs like black leather. Its eye trains on yours in a horrid red glow, ...How swift might you flee through the knee-deep snow?