Jack Strange - Zomcats!

“Precisely,” said Johnson. “And today we discovered that there are beasts on Stonker Moor as well. We were attacked by the Beasts of Stonker moor.”

“Adolf Doughnut!” A nurse’s voice rang out.

Doughnut stood up and went for his treatment, followed by Tyler.

The P.M. leaned close to Johnson.

“Genius, Johnson,” he said. “That’s how we’ll sell it to the public. We’ll tell them there are beasts on Stonker Moor. That way we don’t have to admit that there are zomcats on the loose. If we did, Johnny Public might flap a bit. But if we tell him there are beasts on the moor, he’ll keep calm and just stay away from the moor.”

At that moment the man who had self-medicated came charging past.

“Apart from one or two lunatics of course,” he added.

Eventually, the casualties of the cess-pit were all treated for their immersion in ordure, and were able to leave the Calderdale Royal Hospital.

Doughnut, Camemblert and the other survivors of the ill-fated trip to Stonker Edge missed the Huddersfield zombie clog-dancing festival which had to go ahead without them, and was a great success, apart from the absence of the expected VIP’s, and apart from the fact that five more Huddersfield residents vanished without trace during the festivities.

Doughnut and Camemblert and their aides were helicoptered to Heathrow, where Doughnut and Tyler said farewell to Camemblert and Johnson. The American contingent then took off in Air Force One, heading for Washington DC.

Camemblert turned to Johnson as Air Force One ascended towards the grey blanket of cloud high above their heads.

“I think that all went rather spiffingly well in the end, don’t you Johnson?” He said.

Meanwhile, up in Huddersfield near Stonker Moor, a British Army Colonel was stubbing a cigarette out on the side of a tank.

“All right lads. Let’s get up to Stonker Moor and show those zomcats who’s the guv’nor round here.”

He climbed into the tank. It moved forward with a column of armoured vehicles following close behind.

Dave Sykes and Dawn Parker were two young people who had been at the centre of events when the zombies had launched their audacious bid to take over the United Kingdom a few months earlier. They’d been lucky to escape from the zombies with their lives.

Dave looked around the cramped little flat they now rented in the London Borough of Bexley. It amounted to two tiny rooms plus a cramped bathroom, but he was happy with it.

“You know something?” He said. “In some ways the zombies did us a favour. They brought us closer together.”

Dawn, who was sitting next to him on their sofa, grinned.

“You’re right,” she said. “But I’m glad we’ve seen the back of them. Oh, by the way, I’ve got something to tell you.”

Dave’s heart missed a beat. Was his girlfriend pregnant? If so, how could they afford to bring up a child?

“What-what-what is it?” He asked.

“I’m thinking of getting a cat,” she said. She squeezed his hand. “I’ve always liked cats.”

An elderly caretaker was sitting in his office in the basement of an impressive glass and steel apartment building in Notting Hill. Opposite him, on the other side of his desk there was a tall middle-aged man.

“I haven’t heard from him for months and it’s just not like him,” said the man. “That’s why I’m convinced something’s wrong.”

“And he’s your brother, you say?” The caretaker asked.

“That’s right. I haven’t been able to ring him or skype him or get in touch with him in any way for ages. His Facebook account has gone dead. It’s just not like him. We’re not in each other’s pockets or anything, but we usually exchange a text once a week at the very least. That’s why I need to get access to his apartment. I’m convinced that something is very wrong.”

“I have keys to all the apartments for emergencies,” said the caretaker. “I suppose I could take you up there and let you in, under the circumstances. I’ll have to accompany you, mind. I can’t let you in on your own.”

“I understand.”

The caretaker swivelled around in his revolving chair. Behind him, on the wall, there was a steel cupboard with a lock on it. He took a key from his pocket and unlocked it and opened the door, revealing a series of numbered hooks, each of which had a set of keys draping from it. He selected one of the sets of keys and closed and locked the steel cupboard.

“Let’s go,” he said.

They took the lift to the top floor and walked along a wide hallway and stopped at a door. The caretaker inserted one of the keys into the keyhole and opened the door. He entered, followed by the middle-aged man.

“Oh my God, what’s that terrible smell?”

They both tried not to breathe too deeply.

They went through the hallway into the lounge. The floor of the lounge was covered with a priceless Dartmoor Plain Royal Borough Wilton Collection carpet, which had a number of blobs of something dirty-looking dotted here and there on it. A good number of the blobs had greenish-white mould erupting from them.

“What the hell is that?” The man asked.

The caretaker bent down close to one of the blobs, but not too close.

“I think it’s cat shit,” he said. “It looks as if your brother was breaking the rules of our apartment building. You’re not allowed to keep pets in here, not apart from fish, anyway.”

The man raised his eyebrows.

“Now I know that something is very wrong,” he said. “My brother would never have kept a cat in here. He hated them, and he was allergic to them. With the best will in the world, he couldn’t have shared an apartment with a cat.”

When Pratt next plucked up the courage to visit his creation, he found her bent over the freezer containing Kaz’s body. He couldn’t see what she was up to, because she’d opened it and the upright lid masked her actions from view.

He walked around to her side of the freezer and found, to his horror, that she was taking bites out of Kaz’s body and chewing them with gusto.

He grabbed her arm and pulled her away.

“No!” He shouted. “You mustn’t do that! It’s cannibalism!”

She turned and glared at him with a look that made his blood run cold, then she gave him a backhand that sent him flying across the cellar.

Pratt knew better than to try to stop her again. He crawled back upstairs wondering where he was going to get a regular supply of the kind of food that she so clearly needed. At that moment there was a knock on the front door. Fearful that it might be the police, he opened it a fraction and peered around it to see who his visitor was.

There, on the doorstep, he saw his two neighbours — the odd bald one and the younger, handsome, racially inferior one. They were both smiling.

The bald one had three mugs of coffee on a tray; the handsome one had three scones on a tray.

“Surprise,” said Darren. “We’ve brought you a housewarming present.”

Pratt pondered for a moment.

Then he realised that one of his problems, at least for a brief period, might be over.

He smiled.

“Please do come in,” he said.

Pratt led them down the dank hallway to the kitchen.

“Please excuse the terrible state this place is in,” he said.

“It’s just like ours,” said Darren. “It’s a mirror image of our house, and it looks like it hasn’t been done up for years, just like ours. I expect you bought it as a doer-upper like us.”

“I did,” said Pratt. “Wait till you see the kitchen.”