Kathy's not exactly sure where she starts dreaming of the creature. It appears during the course of her pregnancy, she's sure of that, but in the beginning it's just a flicker, an image, a dream among dreams.
Later on, as the child inside her grows and her terrified, desperate hope rises for each week without a miscarriage, the dreams start to change, to solidify. She keeps finding herself in the same place, lying on her back, alone in the dark, with bright eyes glinting at her from the shadows.
Not human eyes, she can see that from the beginning. At first, she thinks it's a dog, but as time passes, in dream after dream, she begins to recognize a shape from a long-ago schoolbook.
Jackal, she thinks, and wakes up with the word trembling quietly on her lips. Bad-luck howls, hasn't she heard that somewhere? Bad luck, bad luck, and when she vomits this morning she doesn't think it's entirely biological.
It's anxiety, Kathy tells herself firmly. Just anxiety. Her baby is safe, her baby is healthy, that's all that matters. She won't go babbling to her husband or her doctors about it, she won't make it any bigger than it already is.
And she doesn't. Even when it comes back, again and again, peering at her with those strange yellow eyes.
Eventually, she can make it out enough to realize that it's pregnant, too, a swollen belly hanging between its legs. That's a good sign, right? People say all sorts of things about jackals, but they can be creatures, too, just every other creature, too. Maybe this is her mind reassuring her, in its own way.
She tells herself that, night after night, until she starts approaching her final trimester and the creature begins coming closer. She can hear the faint rasp of its paws against the floor, see its pregnant belly swinging as it approaches her.
Kathy tries to sit up, pull away, but she can't move. She can't move in her dream and she doesn't know how she never noticed it before, but it's true. All she can do is lie there and feel the jackal press its cold, damp nose against her foot, feeling exactly like a dog nuzzling against her on the street.
At first, the pressure is enough to jerk her awake, blinking at the gray morning. She'll go through the door and lose herself in preparations for the baby and her duties as a diplomat's wife, trying hardest not to think of the jackal beyond a faint wish that tonight's sleep will be dreamless.
It never is. And one night, the nose touches her and she doesn't wake, just lies there as it brushes ever so gently across her skin. Seemingly emboldened by her submission, the jackal nuzzles higher and higher up her leg, over her skin--her bare skin. How long has she been naked?
Stop, Kathy wants to say. Stop, please, go away. But her jaw is as disobedient as the rest of her muscles and she just lies there, shivering as the cold, wet nose skims over her hip. It's coming to stand over, it's massive, swollen belly hanging low enough to brush smooth hairs over her flesh.
Kathy cringes, or tries to, but all she can manage is a helpless little quiver. Her own stomach twists at how close the thing is all of a sudden and she has a terrible mental image of revulsion sizzling through her womb, scalding it raw. A tear stings her eyes and trickles down her cheek.
The jackal keeps going, hot little sandpaper laps sprinkled across Kathy's skin as it licks at little bits of her. Don't kill me, she wants to beg. Don't, please, I'm a mother, too, don't-- 
She gasps as it drags its tongue across her stomach, tracing the mountainous rise and fall. For a single, terrible moment, Kathy wonders if it's going to rip her open and devour whatever it finds, but instead it whisks its tongue along her belly button, making her pulse stutter with sensation.
Its yellow eyes flicker to her, giving Kathy a better look into them than she ever has before. They look almost...sad, somehow.
I don't understand, Kathy wants to say, even though she doubts the jackal would understand. I don't know what you want. She strains and pushes like she does her labor classes, but her body isn't listening to her anymore. It's like it's been taken over, a vessel for something bigger than her, something darker.
The jackal lowers its head, nuzzling along Kathy's waist. She can feel its cold little nose brush the soft tuft of hair along her cunt.
No. 
NO. 
Kathy's screaming, thrashing, writhing, scrambling to her feet and running away; but only in the back of her mind, not in this dream-body she's been stuck in. She can't stop that tongue from sliding down and down, heat dragging across her flesh. She can't stop it when it presses against her clit and wriggles. 
Pleasure hits like a burst of perfume and a bullet, fire racing inside her skin. Kathy tries to pull away from it, shove it down, but she can't escape anymore than she can the jackal. Another flick, and another, the warm press of its monstrous little mouth as it wriggles and flexes.
It--she's--Robert has tried to eat her out before, but neither of them ever really got much from this, but this....it's like this creature knows, like it knows exactly where to turns its head, where to stretch and push its tongue, all the little places outside and in her that can break her down.
She's suffocating on the wrongness, breaking and twisting under its weight. No more, she begs. No more, please, please, please God.  
But the jackal just keeps on with its work, its massive belly swinging back and forth like a pendulum drawing her down. Kathy wants to strip off her skin and wash her organs clean with bleach, only she can't even wriggle her pinky.
All there she can lie there and feel, feel, feel, which means she knows exactly how the feelings are building. The jackal seems to sense it, too, the way it's moving faster and faster, like it's tearing into a carcass. Like the rot she feels inside means she's already dead.
Between her legs, in the dark, she can see its lips curl. She can see its eyes, see something like pain, and something like fury, and something like dumb, brutal confusion. It's sunk low enough that she can feel its belly pressing down on her legs, hard enough and heavy enough she truly thinks they might break.
It jerks its head and Kathy's head snaps back as she lets out a sharp, broken grasp. She can see more eyes watching from the shadows all around, animal and human, peering down at her dispassionately.
Another flick and she's shaking, and breaking, and screaming, really screaming, as she thrashes awake in her bed with fresh dampness in her underwear and yellow eyes flashing through her brain. She's barely aware of her husband touching her, holding her, the aftermath of wretched pleasure burning the feeling of his hands away.
The doctor says there's nothing wrong, that her baby is fine. Robert asks what happened to make her scream so terribly and Kathy opens her mouth, only to find nothing, nothing at all, on her tongue. She can't remember.
So, she just holds her belly close to her chest and reassures herself that everything is fine, everything will be alright. These things happen, don't they? Strange dreams you can't remember?
(The next and last time Kathy sees the jackal, she's lying on a table in the birthing room, the world a blurry, drugged mess of voices and people moving around her. She turns her head and glimpses yellow eyes peering at her through a half-open, watching, waiting.
She blinks, slow and hazy, and it's gone, as if it never existed at all).