Jack Strange - Zomcats!

Jenny Blackshaw interviewed them both.

“Let’s get this straight, Marjory,” she said. “I’ll go over it one last time. You say you saw Bob Slawit being terrorised by a group of youths who call themselves the Savages. He turned into a cat — a bigger-than-average cat, but not a big cat like a tiger — and he killed them all.”

“That’s right,” said Marjory. “I know what I saw, Constable.”

Marjory was beginning to wonder if she did know what she saw. Even when she’d been watching it happen, she hadn’t quite believed it.

“Is it possible you saw a cat savage the Savages and in all the confusion, you just imagined that the cat was Bob Slawit?”

“No. Er, yes. Er, well, I don’t know, I’m sorry.”

“All right, never mind Marjory.”

Her interview with Owen in the Ne’er do well was similarly confusing.

“It was a cat, you say?”

“Yes, constable, and if there is such a thing as a were-cat, it was a were-cat.”

“What’s a were-cat?”

“A werewolf is a man who turns into a wolf, otherwise known as a lycanthrope. This was a man who turned into a cat. So you’d call him a were-cat, or a felinethrope. I’ve got a video of it.”

Owen held up his mobile and showed Blackshaw what he’d recorded. There was so much camera shake going on that it was impossible to make anything of the images he’d captured.

“Where’s the footage of the man changing into a cat?” Blackshaw asked.

“I didn’t start filming till after that had happened.”

“Thank you, Mr. Blackhead, that’ll be all for now. I’ll be in touch if I need to interview you about your evidence again.”

Blackshaw stood up and left the pub, shaking her head as soon as she was out of the door.

She noticed the tracker teams all heading in the same direction; their dogs seemed to agree that whatever they were after had gone up Nodger Hill.

There were four teams, with four dogs between them. The dogs lowered their snouts to the pavement periodically, then moved forwards in pursuit of their quarry.

Their handlers followed close behind, each accompanied by a marksman who had his rifle at the ready. The dogs neared the top of the hill, then stopped, and began whining and squealing. They refused to go further.

“I’ve never seen them do anything like this before,” said one of the handlers.

“It could mean we’re almost on it,” said another.

The marksmen raised their rifles. The dogs retreated to the back of the group of men, and cowered, quietly whimpering.

Ahead of them was Slawit Hall, large and threatening, with the bleak Yorkshire Moorlands behind it. A wind blew, and the front door creaked open.

“I bet it’s in there,” said one of the men. “I bet it’s bloody well in that house.”

“What’re we gonna do about it if it is?”

“We can’t risk going in there. Let’s check where it can get in and out. We’ll surround the place and cover every opening, and then we’ll smoke it out. When it shows its face, we’ll blow its bloody head off.”

The teams fanned out, leaving their dogs tethered to the gateposts at the end of the drive leading up to Slawit Hall. As they moved forwards, a ginger cat which was slightly bigger than a domestic cat emerged from the front door, heading calmly in the direction of the moorland. One of the men raised his rifle and drew a bead on it. Then he said:

“No, that can’t be it. That’s just a bloody cat. No point in blowing that to bits, it’d be a waste of ammo. Might as well save it for the real thing.”

Once the place had been surrounded, the team hurled smoke bombs through the windows. They waited and waited, but nothing emerged. They tried using their tracker dogs again, but the dogs either failed to find a scent, or were reticent to follow it.

As dusk fell, the Inspector called the team.

“All right, we best call it off for now,” he said. “We’ll go home and have a meeting tomorrow first thing to plan our next move.”

It was the year 1743.

Lord George Slawit, who owned the village of Nobblethwaite and all the land around it as far as the eye could see, was standing in front of Slawit Hall, his ancestral home. He was about to mount his horse when an old gypsy woman appeared at the end of the drive. She walked towards him. He narrowed his eyes and looked at her, and then got on his horse and galloped over to her.

“This is private property,” he said. “What do you want?”

“If it pleases your Lordship,” she replied, “I ’ave some wooden clothes pegs for sale.”

She raised a basketful of pegs she was carrying so that Slawit could see them properly.

“What would I want with a load of stupid fucking pegs?” He demanded. “Get off my land before I horsewhip thee, thou ignorant old crone.”

“I will get off thine land, Lord Slawit,” she replied. “But afore I do, I’m going to put a curse on thee. And forevermore, folk round here will talk of the curse of the Slawits that laid your family low.”

She began chanting and waving one of her arms around, still clutching her basket with the other. Slawit raised his hand with his horsewhip in it as if to strike her, and she turned and fled.

“Good riddance!” he shouted at her fast-disappearing back.

One of his gardeners had heard the exchange and he looked up from his weeding with a troubled expression on his face.

“What art thou looking at?” Slawit demanded. “Get back to thine work thou nosey fucking bastard before I raise my hand to you.”

The gardener quickly turned away.

From then on, the fortunes of the Slawits went slowly into decline.

It was the year 2016.

The Ne’er do well was packed with villagers getting trolleyed. The landlady had a real fire going in the grate, and everyone was talking about the events of the day.

“It was Bob Slawit, I tell yer. He turned into a cat. I saw it with me own eyes.”

“Don’t be such a daft bugger, Sam. I saw it too, but I never saw Bob Slawit doing ’owt. It was a cat, a bloody big cat, like a tiger, only ginger.”

“It wore never a tiger. It wore more like a lynx.”

“Bugger you and your lynx. It were a bobcat.”

“What’s a fucking bobca—”

At that moment the door opened, and a stranger entered the pub. He was young and carrying a rucksack. He walked confidently to the bar. Heads turned to look at him.

“Good evening,” he said to the landlady. “I’d like a pint of the Magic Rock Pale Ale please.”

She pulled him his pint and he handed over a ten pound note.

“Can I ask you for some directions?” He asked.

“Of course,” she said “fire away.”

“I’m looking for Slawit hall, the ancestral home of my family.”

Everybody stopped talking. Silence descended over the entire pub. The young man felt the eyes of everyone in the pub staring at him.

“What’s wrong?” He asked. “Have I said something I shouldn’t?”

An old man with a twisted lip sidled up to him.

“We don’t like talk of Slawit Hall round ’ere lad,” he said. “It’s nothing personal. It’s just that there’s a curse on t’place.”

All around the pub heads nodded, and people could be heard saying “That’s right,” and “It’s t’ curse of t’ Slawits”.

The Landlady gave the young man his change.

“Don’t take any notice of them,” she said. “They don’t know what they’re talking about.”

“Oh aye,” said a man sitting at a table near the bar, “how do you explain what happened this afternoon, then? You know — Bob Slawit turning into a were-cat and killing five young men in t’ street outside?”