“Fucking ’ell fire,” said Slawit, quickly retracting his foot.
Blood was spraying from the holes the zomcat’s teeth had made. He hobbled around in a panic, while Henderson eagerly licked up the blood that dribbled all over the kitchen floor.
“Got to get outa here,” Slawit muttered.
He tapped his way upstairs to his bedroom and shut the door.
Then he heard a noise on the landing:
“Meee-ow mee-ow.”
He hopped around in a panic until he’d located his chest of drawers and shifted it as best he could against the door, then he hopped to his bed and collapsed on it, breathing heavily.
Meanwhile, Henderson padded back downstairs. He knew that kindly humans who fed him at night would generally feed him in the morning too, so he returned to the kitchen and found a cardboard box to curl up in. Then he waited patiently for Slawit’s return. After a while he nodded off and dreamed of a terrible accident he’d had some months previously.
He’d been run over by a car which had squashed his midsection flat and killed him.
The next thing he knew, he was waking up in the cellar of his next-door neighbour, Professor Ted Forsyth, who lived at 41 Acacia Avenue in the London borough of Sutton, near Croydon..
Forsyth had built a machine he called the ‘Lazarus Engine’, and he had used it to raise Henderson from the dead. Unfortunately, the process hadn’t quite worked as planned, for it hadn’t truly brought Henderson back to life; instead, it had turned him into a zombie cat, or zomcat. Moreover, it hadn’t done anything to fix his midsection, which remained flat as a pancake and resembled the blade of a circular saw, owing to his vertebrae protruding up from it.
While Henderson lay in the kitchen dreaming, Slawit got his breath back. As soon as he felt he could move again, he reached to his bedside cabinet where he kept his telephone, picked up the receiver, and dialled 999.
A young male voice answered his call.
“This is the Emergency Services. Which service do you require?”
“The bloody ambulance service, and be quick about it, and the police, and probably the fire engines too.”
“I’m sorry, sir, what is the emergency? Is it a fire?”
“No, it’s a cat. At least that’s what I thought it was, and I let it into me house. But I think I’ve got the Beast of Bodmin Moor in me kitchen or something just like it, and it’s tried to take me bloody foot off. I need help fast. I daren’t leave me bedroom. I swear to God it’ll ’ave me if I do.”
There was a long pause followed by:
“All right, putting you through now, sir.”
A deeper and more mature male voice took over.
“West Yorkshire Police here. Have you been drinking, sir?”
“What’s that got to do with anything? I’m in fear of me life. Send some help round right away.”
“What appears to be the problem, sir?”
“A wild animal I let in me house. I thought it was a cat but it’s not. It’s a bloody panther or something like that.”
“When you let it in, couldn’t you see what exactly it was, sir?”
“No I bloody well couldn’t. I’m blind.”
“All right, I’ll send a car round. What’s your address?”
“Slawit Hall, Nodger Hill, Nobblethwaite. And I need an ambulance as well.”
“Very good. What’s your name, please?”
“Slawit. Bob Slawit.”
“On its way for you, Mr. Slawit.”
Slawit collapsed on his bed.
After what seemed an interminable wait, there was a knock on his front door. He recognised it immediately as a policeman’s knock. He’d heard one before, many years ago, when, as a child, he’d broken a neighbour’s window and the police had been called to investigate. After the police had been and gone, his father had given him a leathering of the sort that the little fucking bastard twats could have done with on a daily basis.
He heard his front door opening, then he heard the voices of the policemen.
“Christ almighty, what a smell. Doesn’t he ever clean this place?”
“Maybe he does, but it must be hard for him, Ben. He’s blind.”
“Oh God, that pong. It’s enough to make yer eyes water. Hey, Charlie, hang on a minute. What was that?”
“What was what?”
“I just saw something move in the kitchen.”
“Didn’t that bloke Slawit say something about a cat?”
“What I just saw was no bloody cat. Get your truncheon out, Charlie. That’s it. Oh my God, have you bloody well seen it?”
“I’ve never seen anything like it. If it gets anywhere near either of us, give it a good whack. Where’s my pepper spray?”
Slawit heard a sound like an angry cat hissing, and another sound like a policeman’s truncheon hitting something fleshy but very solid. Then he heard
“Aaaargh!”
“Aaaaaaarrgh!”
He listened for the reassuring sound of coppers’ feet coming up the stairs to his bedroom, but none came, not even after ten more minutes. There was just an eerie silence, so he called the emergency services again.
“It’s Bob Slawit here, of Slawit Hall,” he said, when he was finally put through to the police. “You’ve just sent a couple of coppers round to me house to see off this animal that’s been terrorising me. Yer need to send reinforcements fast.”
“Why?” The young man who’d taken his call asked.
“I think the two you’ve just sent me are dead”
“What makes you think that, Mr. Slawit?”
“They came into me house twenty minutes since. I didn’t see them, because I’m stuck up here in me bedroom. Anyway, after they came in, they both screamed. Blood-curdling screams they were, and since then I’ve heard nothing from them. Not a dicky bird. So I reckon they must’ve happened some’at. Some’at that didn’t do them a right lot of good, if yer get me meaning.”
“All right, Mr. Slawit, I’ll try to contact the officers now, and see what they’re doing.”
“Yer might as well contact the bloody undertakers while yer at it, for all the good that’ll do.”
“I’m sure there’s no cause for alarm, Mr. Slawit. Please be patient. I’ll have to end this call now, so that I can deal with your problem. Your number has come up on my system. I’ll call you back if we need to talk further. Good bye.”
“Get yer best team of SWAT men up he—”
The line went dead.
“Fucking arse-holes, honestly!” Said Slawit.
He lay down on his bed, and waited in the darkness, listening for cat noises, but all that he could hear was the rapid beating of his own heart.
CHAPTER 2
The man at the Nab police station who’d spoken to Slawit got on the police radio.. He heard it ring out to Ben and Charlie, the two constables who’d been sent to Slawit’s house, but there was no reply. He radioed Jenny Blackshaw and Keith Foster, two constables who were in a patrol car near Nobblethwaite.
“Jenny, Keith, there’s been a report of two of our men going down at Slawit Hall.”
“What’s happened to them, Brian?”
“They’re said to have been killed by an animal of some kind. It’s probably nothing, but I can’t get in touch with them. The householder’s a local character called Bob Slawit. He’s got a reputation for being a bit of a nutter. He says he’s trapped in his bedroom. I think he’s been drinking. Anyway, I need you to investigate right away.”
“Ten four” said Foster, who liked to imagine that he was a member of the California Highway Patrol, and not just a British Beat Bobby in a crap car.
Jenny put her foot on the accelerator and they sped, blues and twos, to Slawit Hall.
They pulled up in the street outside, and climbed out of their car. It was dark, and the lone house reared up against the night sky. There were no lights on in the house so they switched on their police torches as they approached the front door, which was open.