Jack Strange - Zomcats!

The CIA men abruptly came to a halt and everyone behind them collided into each other.

The people at the back couldn’t see what had caused the CIA team halt.

“Why has everybody stopped?” Camemblert asked.

“Heaven alone knows, prime Minister,” said Johnson. “Our American cousins have always been a flighty and unpredictable lot, as you know.”

Two gunshots rang out across the field.

“What the devil was that?” Cameblert asked.

“I believe it was gunfire, Prime Minister,” said Johnson.

At the head of the line there was a dead CIA man lying next to the path. Two cats were on top of him. They’d been ripping chunks from his face until two of his colleagues had shot them.

The cats had both been hit in the torso, but apart from having holes that ran clean through them, they appeared unhurt. What’s more, they looked very pissed off.

One of the CIA men turned to the other. “Oh my fucking God,” he said.

The cats crouched low and wiggled their backsides.

“They’re about to pounce,” said his colleague. “Quick, take a head shot.”

They aimed and shot. The heads of both cats exploded. The headless torsos collapsed to the ground, their legs twitching.

“What the hell were they?” Doughnut asked.

“I don’t know sir,” said one of the two CIA men at his side. “But don’t worry. We’ve just got rid of the problem.”

As the words left his mouth, the grass ahead of them parted in various places and heads began to stick out of it. Cat heads. Two cats appeared on the path in front of them: Henderson and Goliath.

“Oh my fucking God,” Said the CIA man again. He directed his gaze at Henderson, running his eye over his curiously flattened and spiked midriff. “What in the name of fuck is that?”

“Quick,” said a voice behind him, “take the president back the other way.”

The two men who were either side of the president turned and wheeled him around with them. They marched back the way they’d come, with a protective cordon of CIA operatives surrounding them. Just as they’d done before, they barged TV crews out of their way as they headed down the path to safety.

Meanwhile, at the head of the queue, the two men who’d been leading the way to the gap in the wall had been left behind as a rear-guard. Each had twenty or thirty zomcats attached to various parts of his body by their teeth and claws.

They both cried out the famous last words that have been spoken countless times before during the grim history of our species:

“Aaaaaargh!”

The last of the motorbike cops drove past them as they went down, retreating towards the gap in the wall as fast as his bike could carry him. Before he got within twenty yards of it, something came bounding across the field towards him. It had blades where it should have had hind legs, and the way it moved was suggestive of a giant flea, or the marvel-comic book character known as the ‘Hulk’. It hit the biker with the force of a cannonball and sent him flying out of sight into a huge clump of thistles. He was never seen again.

The CIA men moved as quickly as they could, given the age and weight of their Commander-in-Chief. It was quick enough to spread confusion amongst those ahead of them, who found themselves having to change direction for a second time to get away from the threat they faced.

The PM was forced to stop because the people ahead of him were suddenly coming towards him. The mayor, who was to his rear, barged into his back.

“I’m very sorry Prime Minister,” he said, doffing his tricorn hat apologetically.

The P.M. ignored him.

“What the devil can be happening now, Johnson?” The PM asked crossly, as panic-stricken news broadcasters and media men streamed past him, some of them jostling him in their eagerness to get away from some hidden danger that the PM hadn’t yet seen.

“I haven’t the foggiest, Prime Minister,” Johnson replied.

“Well, I think this is bloody shameful,” said the PM, as the CIA men flanking Doughnut barged him out of the way. “They ought to show some backbone. Stiff upper lip and all that.”

There was now no-one left in front of Johnson and the PM. This gave them a clear view of the path ahead all the way to the opening in the wall that they had originally entered by, but neither of them was looking at the opening. They both had their eyes fixed on what looked like a mountain of domestic cats devouring something.

Could it be, could it possibly be? Thought the PM. He looked more closely. Yes, yes it is. It’s two of the CIA men. Those bloody cats are eating the CIA men.

One of the cats raised its head.

It was a big ginger brute of a cat, with a midsection that looked like a circular saw. Its evil eyes seemed to glow a bright red colour.

“Johnson,” he said. “Do you see what I see?”

“Yes, prime Minister. I think so.”

“What do you think we should do?”

“I think we should bloody well run.”

“So do I.”

Both men turned and ran back along the path, quickly catching up with the mayor, who was somewhat corpulent, and then overtaking the President and his men. The PM made a point of barging into the CIA men as he overtook them.

To either side of the path there were expensive cameras and sound booms that had been abandoned by the TV crews who had decided that survival was more important than preserving the equipment of their employers. The TV crews were running as fast as they could away from the Zomcats, as was everyone else. The path couldn’t accommodate everyone, so many of them were forced to run in the long grass at either side of the path.

“Aaaargh!”

The PM, who was tiring, turned his head to see a sound man go down with one cat on his head, three hanging from his back, and countless others attached to his legs. The PM found extra reserves of energy and began to run faster.

“Aaaargh!”

Another sound man went down.

The once-orderly line of people was now a panic-stricken rabble charging towards Stonker Edge Farm. Not many of them were on the path any more. They had formed an amorphous mass on the path and to either side of it, and with every few second that passed, another cry went up, as someone on the fringes of the rabble was brought down by the zomcats:

“Aaaaargh!”

A cameraman disappeared into the grass.

“Aaaaargh!”

The mayor’s chauffeur fell, never to be seen again.

“Aaaaargh!”

The mayor went down, his tricorn hat spinning from his head.

The rabble had become a fleeing herd of wild animals being attacked by ruthless predators. The PM, who, in spite of the timber around his middle, jogged on most days, and was therefore quite fit, was near the front of the herd. Johnson, who also kept reasonably fit, was at his side. Just behind them were the fittest of the media men; and to their rear was the president and the CIA. At the very back were the Fleet-street reporters who spent their lives listening to gossip in pubs, getting drunk, and smoking. All these groups had others to either side of them who were being picked off by the zomcats.

It wasn’t long before the amorphous mass of people had been reduced to a line once again, because all of the people on the flanks had been taken down and mauled and eaten by zomcats. The survivors redoubled their efforts to run faster.

“Aaaaaargh!”

From the corner of his eye, the president saw that one of his CIA bodyguards had somehow turned into a strange kind of Yeti; he’d become larger, and covered in fur, and he’d unaccountably slowed to walking pace. He fell on his back, the fur that covered him seeming to writhe in glee.