Avid: adjective: desirous to the point of greed, urgently eager

From “The Shawl”: For he kept seeing his mother put the baby and grip his sister around the waist. He saw the brown shawl with its red lines flying open. He saw the shadows, the wolves, rush together, quick and avid, as the wagon with sled runners disappeared into the distance- forever, for neither he nor his father saw Aanakwad again.

Now I came to know that the boy used to see a nightmare where his mother and sister are being chased by quick and hungrily greedy wolves.