Weeks passed and Jennifer’s condition declined. Mark took responsibility, since he had a record, until we could sort it all out. His arrest was quick.
Sorting it out was the problem, though. Things in the basement are hard to comprehend, our options were limited.

1) Try to interact kindly with it again; risk being torn apart.
2) Call in an “expert”, animal control or police. Risk having a stranger torn apart.
3) Call the Government.

We wrote it all out on paper, drawing plans for approaching the thing. My heart skipping beats every time I think of Jenn. We looked up numbers for the government and animal control online.

We rehearsed the calls.
“This is Kelly, how can I help you?”
“Yes, we have a thing in our basement. Your teams should come here immediately. It is incredibly dangerous and has already hurt a person.”
“What is this ‘thing’”?
“It’s a…”
That’s where the call would fall apart.
We were down to one plan.