These quotes come from a short escape story (published in The End of the World as We Know it: New Tales of Stephen King’s The Stand) called “The African Painted Dog” by Catriona Ward.

The titular wild animals escape a New York zoo by clambering up a fallen tree during a thunderstorm:

Below, the sparkling black snake leaps and lashes at the water, as if angry it can’t reach us. It seems furious that we’re free. So we get up and dance on our hind legs and shout down at it all, water an snake, dancing in the rain. Thunder and rain pounds at us, but we’re part of it now.

and

Even though we’re afraid of the storm, everything in my nose and body is shouting. The feel of the new ground beneath our feet. The scents all around, the wide-open space, no longer surrounded by rock walls. New, new, new!

and