Jack Strange - Zomcats!

They went inside with truncheons drawn, just in case, and tried the light switches and found they didn’t work. They entered the front room and saw nothing amiss.

They walked into the kitchen and directed their torch beams around the walls then onto the floor.

“Oh. My. Fucking. God.” Said Foster.

There, in front of him, were the bodies of his colleagues Ben and Charlie. Both had been badly mauled, and Charlie looked as if it he’d been half-eaten.

Blackshaw looked at her feet and realised she was standing in blood. For a moment she hesitated, unsure of whether to leave the crime scene for fear of contaminating it, or to approach her colleagues to check if either of them was alive, although that seemed impossible. Nevertheless, she decided that she ought to check, and she quickly went over to them. A cursory glance by torchlight when she was up close told her all she needed to know.

She looked at Foster and shook her head.

“Whatever the fuck did this, it might still be around,” said Foster. “Better keep your wits about you. You call for backup, and I’ll keep watch.”

He took out his pepper spray and held it in one hand and his torch in the other, while Blackshaw called in to headquarters.

“Okay,” he said, when she had finished the call. “Let’s see if we can find the householder.”

They crept upstairs in the darkness with only their torches for illumination. When they reached the landing, Blackshaw called out.

“Mr. Slawit. Mr. Slawit! It’s the police.”

“Where have you lot fucking been? I’ve been stuck up here scared shitless for the last two hours.”

She tried the bedroom door, but it wouldn’t move because the chest of drawers was shoved up against it. Foster put his shoulder to the door, and they both pushed, and it inched open.

They shone their torches into the bedroom. Slawit was on his bed, the bottom end of which was dark red with dried blood. There was a trickle of blood coming from one of his boots.

“I’ll call an ambulance,” said Blackshaw.

“Haven’t you got one?” Slawit asked. “I bloody well told ’em to send one.”

The ambulance took two hours to arrive. When it did, Slawit was stretchered inside and taken to the Accident and Casualty department of the Nab hospital, where he was given a tetanus injection, patched up and discharged.

By noon the following day he was holding court in his favourite haunt — the Ne’er do Well pub.

“I tell yer, it wore the beast of Bodmin Moor,” he said to a walker who’d spent the morning hiking over the moors, and gone to the pub for a refreshing pint, little knowing that he’d be buttonholed by the village bore as soon as he entered the place.

The locals all knew to keep their distance from Slawit. Even the fact that he was partially sighted wasn’t enough to earn him the pity to be listened to, these days. They’d all had enough.

“But Bodmin Moor’s over three hundred miles south of here,” said the walker.

“Well, it couldn’t have been anything else. Unless it wore a cougar,” said Bob.

The walker was half-minded to say “don’t be ridiculous,” then he relented.

He saw Bob’s white stick and noticed that Bob’s eyes never seemed to be quite looking in the direction they should, and he knew that Bob had serious eyesight problems. He felt sorry for him.

He wished he could ask “How would you know? — You’re blind?” But he couldn’t.

You didn’t treat blind people that way. And besides, he told himself, the old man with the broad Yorkshire accent was probably a half-wit. He certainly sounded like one.

“A cougar, eh?” He said. “I bet you don’t get many of those round here.”

The walker tried hard not to sound sarcastic when he said it, but some small note of doubt about the veracity of Bob’s story must have entered his voice, because Bob said:

“Are you being a clever bugger, or what?”

“No,” said the walker, “Not at all. I was just saying, you don’t get many of those around here. Cougars, I mean. Nor beasts from Bodmin Moor, I expect.” He used the most sincere tone of voice of which he was capable, and this seemed to placate his partially-sighted drinking companion.

“Yer don’t,” said Bob. “And I hope to God it fucking stays that way. It’s killed two men already. They were a right bloody mess.”

“What were?” The walker asked.

“The two men. The ones that got killed by the animal in me house.”

“When was that?” The walker asked politely.

By now he was convinced that Bob Slawit was unhinged.

“Last night. I shudder to think what’d happen if we had more than one of them things on the loose running round the village. We’d all end up as cat food.”

“Quite” said the walker. “That would be beyond the pale, wouldn’t it?”

“Yeah, I’m Bob by the way,” said Slawit, holding out his hand expectantly.

The walker saw how grubby it was, and quickly slipped on a glove before shaking Bob’s hand. He made a mental note to wash the glove as soon as he got the chance.

“I’m Owen,” he said. “Owen Blackhead.”

“You should see me foot,” said Bob, raising it from beneath the table so that Owen could get a good look at it. It was covered in bandages. “If I’ve got one stitch in me foot, I must ’ave got five hundred.”

“That looks painful,” said Owen, planning his escape.

He downed what remained of his pint in one gulp and stood up.

“I really must be going now.”

“I’ll be going me self soon. I need to go and get me self some nosebag.”

“Cheerio — er — what did you say your name was?”

“Bob Slawit.”

“Cheerio, Bob. I’ll see you when I’m next in Nobblethwaite.”

But not if I can help it, he thought.

Slawit raised his head, his oddly pale eyes darting around randomly.

“Goodbye, young man,” he said, and Owen felt for a moment quite flattered, being well into late middle age.

He left the pub, and went to the village bakery for further refreshments, where he was served by Marjory. He felt he could indulge himself with a clear conscience, having just walked the better part of twenty miles over difficult terrain.

“I’ll have a slice of apple pie,” he said. “In fact, make that two slices, please.”

He handed over his money, and Marjory handed over his order.

I’ll make short work of those , thought Owen.

Before he could grab the bag containing his goodies, he was interrupted by a commotion outside. It was the sound of shouting and laughter. But this was no ordinary shouting high spirits; it sounded evil.

Owen looked out of the shop window to see what was causing the noise. He saw a gang of five youths standing in a circle. In the middle of the circle stood the partially-sighted bore he’d been talking to in the Ne’er do well: Bob Slawit. Owen couldn’t hear what was being said, but it was obviously not friendly.

Slawit looked panic-stricken. The youths hadn’t done anything to him other than shout at him, but that was enough to have shaken him up. And no wonder, thought Owen. I’d be shaken up if I had that lot round me, shouting and laughing. He might not be able to see them, but just from the sound of their voices, he’ll know what they’re like.

Owen took the paper bag containing his rocky road from Marjory. He felt he ought to intervene and stop the youths from taunting the old man. At the same time, he worried about what might happen if he did.

Owen Blackhead was a big man, standing over six feet tall, but it was a long time since he’d been involved in any trouble of a physical kind. He was in his forties, and the last time he’d been in a brawl was in his teens. He’d been slim, strong, and quick, when he was a teenager, and he hadn’t enjoyed the experience of fighting even then; now, as a middle-aged man, carrying, as he admitted himself, some timber he could do without, he knew that he was ill-equipped for this sort of thing. Still, he couldn’t let it go on without at least trying to help in some way.