 
### Table of Contents

Title Page

Preface

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Epilogue

Books by Terry Eade

# Title Page

# A CATaclysmic

# CATastrophe

# Terry Eade

Copyright 2020 Terry Eade

ISBN: 9780463197820

# Preface

We've all been terrified by a plethora of books and movies encompassing almost every catastrophe imaginable. These would include physical disasters brought about by atrocious asteroids, devastating droughts, extreme earthquakes, ferocious floods, frenzied fires, horrific hurricanes, inimical ice, ravaging radioactivity, savage storms, terrifying tsunamis, treacherous tornadoes, and violent volcanoes.

From the biological realm we've been convinced we could be accosted by armed apes, brutal birds, evil elephants, formidable fungus, insatiable insects, malevolent microbes, pernicious plants, savage sharks, skyjacking snakes, voracious viruses, and wanton wolves. We've even been asked to stretch our imaginations into the realm of science fiction and the supernatural to be terrorized by abhorrent aliens, dangerous dinosaurs, ghastly ghosts, malicious monsters, vicious vampires, wicked witches, and zealous zombies.

But just when we thought we had seen it all, something comes out of left field that shocks our senses and sends a quiver down our spine. Not just because of its originality but more so because of its very frightening feasibility. This threat is not from outer space or the farthest reaches of our imagination, it emerges from the convergence of a series of natural events within a small home in a small town in southwestern Michigan. In fact the agent of this calamity could be sitting in your lap as you watch television or read this book.

The book chronicles how these small furry felines transitioned from cuddly kibble eating companions to man-eating feral cats hunting in packs. It follows their rapid growth in numbers, expansion throughout the country, and elevation to the top of the food chain. The intensity, magnitude, and viciousness of this phenomenon makes many of the catastrophes referenced above pale in comparison.

How this CATaclysmic CATastrophe comes about, grows in magnitude, and is eventually resolved will keep you riveted to this book. Even when this infectious threat has been quelled, it makes us wonder if we have been cured or are we just in remission. It also involves a sinister plot from those who don't have our best interest at heart. Cat owners be warned, this could be injurious to your sound sleep.

## Chapter 1

####  April 2019 on the 1600 Block of 13th Street, Waloma, Michigan

The neighborhood looked old, tired, and shabby. Those still living there had not done much to conceal that appearance. Once a thriving middle class residential street with young families and children in the 1960's, it had matured with its residents and showed the same signs of aging that they had experienced. The children had long since grown up and moved elsewhere leaving their parents to grow old and cling onto their dilapidated, but still cherished houses.

The old paper mill and a farm implements plant where most of the parents worked had both long ago gone out of business leaving abandoned facilities and an impoverished community in their wake. The only primary industry that remained was an old fruit cannery. The rest of the employed population worked at stores, bars, and other small businesses. The primary sources of income in Waloma were company pensions and government checks for social security, retirement, or welfare. Waloma Michigan now had a population of about forty thousand people, only about one-fourth of what it had been in its heyday.

13th Street was even harder hit than most of the other neighborhoods in Waloma. Overgrown grass, dandelions, and weeds had replaced the once highly manicured lawns. The trees, shrubs, and flower beds that tastefully accessorized the homes had either died or become unkempt. However, to Abigail Johnson the small house on 13th Street was her home and all she needed in her old age. Abigail and her husband Jerome had purchased the house in 1952 and raised two children there. Their son Tommy was born in 1953 and their daughter Barbara was born three years later. Tommy had been killed in the Viet Nam War in 1971. A year later, during Barbara's junior year in high school, Jerome died of cancer leaving Abigail with a sixteen year old daughter, a small life insurance policy payout, and a very modest savings account.

Having been a stay-at-home wife all her life, without even a driver's license, Abigail really had no marketable skills to fall back on. Fortunately she found a job as checker at a small grocery store just two blocks away. It didn't pay much, but it allowed her to keep she and Barbara fed and clothed. A mortgage insurance policy had fortunately paid off the mortgage on their house. In 1974, two years after Jerome had died, Barbara graduated from high school and started dating an unemployed ne'er-do-well named Brian Sullivan, who was eight years older than Barbara.

Within six months Barbara married Brian and moved away from Waloma. Abigail despised Brian and told her daughter she was throwing her life away. Abigail wasn't even invited to the short marriage ceremony at the Waloma Courthouse. So she and Barbara had been estranged for years and didn't even send each other Christmas cards. Abigail didn't know where Barbara lived and thought that by now Barbara had probably divorced the jerk and married someone else. Abigail didn't even know if she had any grandchildren or what their first and last names might be.

At eighty-seven years old Abigail had long since retired and now lived entirely on her social security check and the small amount of interest she earned on her still modest savings account. Abigail was in pretty good health for a woman of her age and those medical expenses she incurred from time-to-time were mostly covered by Medicare. Given her age and limited income she was able to get very cheap property taxes and a break on most of her utilities from the county. This was another reason she had to stay in the old house where she had lived continuously for sixty-seven years. Though the paint was peeling and the porch was sagging it was home and looked the way Abigail felt most of the time.

The house on the left was vacant and in even worse shape than hers. The house on the right had been repossessed by the bank and wouldn't be repaired or put up for sale until the housing market and mortgage rates rates improved. Most of the other homes in the neighborhood, that had not been abandoned, were occupied by their original owners, now in their eighties, or rented to young unmarried couples who both worked and had no children.

Abigail's doctor had recommended that she take the senior shuttle to the local senior center a couple of times a week to have some involvement in the community and a chance to make new friends. Abigail had ignored this advice as she didn't like to play cards or games and much preferred being at home with her cats to interacting with a bunch of old folks she didn't even know. She spent so much time taking care of her vegetable garden, cleaning the house, doing laundry, preparing her meals, paying her bills, keeping up with her television programs, and attending to her cats that she couldn't possibly have justified frittering away her time at the senior center. She also had not attended church since Jerome died and didn't want to waste what little money she had in a church collection plate that would probably be used to support a missionary in some country she couldn't even pronounce.

So Abigail had no family, no church or social friends, and no neighbors she interacted with. However, she compensated for her loneliness by having sixteen cats. Any cat that came to her door would be invited in to join her feline family. None of her cats wore collars, were declawed, licensed with the city, neutered, had their shots, or chips installed to identify them. These were unnecessary expenses that Abigail couldn't afford. After all, she often said "cats should stay the way nature created them."

Most of the people in Waloma would consider her a shut-in, but she rejected that notion, because she was comfortable with her small house, thread-bare furniture, her family of cats, and an ancient television, with a bunny ears antenna, that gave her the news, her long-time soap opera, and reruns of her favorite sitcoms from fifty years earlier. So she didn't consider herself to be a shut-in, she was what she would term a "stay-in" and that's the way she wanted to live.

To accommodate that lifestyle she had arranged to have her medications mailed to her house and used the Waloma senior transport service to get her to the doctor's office every two months. She actually didn't think she was all that old and it took a couple of serious falls before she had relented and bought a walker to get around the house and another one she kept outside to work in her garden. However, she had resisted the ads telling her she should have a fall alert device strung around her neck with an exorbitant monthly charge that would have cut severely into her ability to purchase the cat kibble and litter she needed every month.

## Chapter 2

#### 10:00 am Monday - April 8, 2019 at 1611 N. 13th Street, Waloma, Michigan

Another thing Abigail had arranged to fit her home-bound lifestyle was to have her groceries, cat kibble, and cat box litter delivered once a month so she didn't have to walk the two blocks to the store each way a couple of times a week. Getting up and down the stairs with her walker and her groceries would have also been quite difficult. She even convinced the grocery store to subsidize her delivery charge by placing a large order only once a month and being willing to give the delivery service a wide open time-frame on when they could make the delivery. After all, she was always at home anyway. It was a very good arrangement as the nice delivery man would bring the order up the stairs and even bring it in the house and put it on her kitchen table.

The nice delivery man was John Compton. John was not as old as Abigail but he wasn't too far behind. He had retired at age sixty-five and sold his hardware store to a national chain. He then spent three years being bored, gaining weight, and becoming a lazy couch potato who spent his day watching daytime soap operas and game shows. His wife had been the one who had suggested that he get a job as he was always under foot and driving her crazy. So at age sixty-eight he had decided to take a job delivering groceries to home-bound seniors and working folks who just wanted to avoid the supermarket shopping hassle. John had been delivering groceries for two years now and still enjoyed the work, the customers, and the exercise he got on the job. He also didn't mind having a little extra spending money in his pocket.

For most people, Monday morning meant the drudgery of going back to the old grind. However, John was feeling good and actually looking forward to getting into his truck and making his Monday morning run delivering groceries to his customers in Waloma. One of his first stops that day was to an elderly lady named Abigail Johnson who lived on 13th street. John always looked forward to his monthly delivery to Abigail as she was always upbeat and glad to see him. For Abigail it was one of the few chances she had to talk with someone other than her cats.

John took the first box up the stairs and put it on the porch and then came back up with the second box. On his third trip he brought up two large containers of cat litter and on his last trip two thirty-five pound sacks of cat kibble. Out of breath from four trips up the stairs, he rang the bell, but got no response. Thinking Abigail may be in the bathroom he waited a couple of minutes and then rang the bell again.

During this time he noticed that her porch looked out of the ordinary. There were leaves on the porch and Abigail was always very careful to keep the porch swept, as that is where she would sit on her rocker in the evenings to get some fresh air and enjoy the cool evening breeze. It also enabled her to keep track of anything happening in the neighborhood, which usually wasn't much. John also noticed that her porch mailbox was overflowing and some of the mail and medications had been left on the seat of her rocking chair. Abigail usually took the mail in shortly after the postman had put it in her rusty old porch mailbox. Not getting any response after the second ring, he knocked on the door and called her name.

Because some of the groceries were perishable, John did not want to leave them on the porch and have them spoil. He was also concerned about Abigail as she was always at home and eagerly anticipating her monthly grocery delivery. On occasion Abigail would be in her back yard garden and wouldn't hear the door bell. She was also a little hard of hearing so she probably couldn't hear John knocking or calling her name on the front porch. At that point John went around to the back yard. Abigail was not in her garden either so John climbed the steps to her small rear porch, pounded on the back door, and called her name louder than he had on the front porch. Even if she was taking a nap she couldn't have slept through the doorbell, loud knocking, and John calling out her name.

Now John was really worried about Abigail and decided he needed to make sure she was alright. Fortunately the back door was unlocked so he turned the handle and opened the door into Abigail's Kitchen. The first thing that hit him was the pungent odor of decaying flesh and cat feces. The second thing that hit him was sixteen cats leaping onto him in a frenzy, hanging on with their claws, and biting his face, arms, and neck. John immediately grabbed at the cats on his face and backed away from the open door. Unfortunately he had retreated too far and too fast on the small back porch. He missed the top step and fell backwards down seven steps to the concrete pad at the bottom of the steps. At this point his neck broke and everything went black.

## Chapter 3

#### 4:00 pm Monday - April 8, 2019 at the Grocery Delivery Dispatch Office, Waloma, Michigan

By four in the afternoon John's supervisor, Ralph Bender, had received several calls from irritated customers who's grocery deliveries had been missed. After trying to placate the irate customers with apologies and offers of free delivery services, Ralph again called the dispatch radio in John's delivery truck. Ralph also called John's mobile phone several times and left several messages when John had not answered. Finally Ralph got John's delivery schedule for that day and tried to track him down and find out what had gone wrong. Ralph called the first person on John's delivery schedule and was informed that John had been there on schedule and delivered their grocery order. So Ralph called the second customer and got a recorded message that Abigail Johnson was not available and to leave a message after the beep.

Ralph copied down Abigail's address and got into his car and went looking for John. As soon as he turned onto 13th street he could see John's delivery truck parked in front of Abigail's house. He parked behind John's truck and went onto the front porch where he could see the two boxes of groceries and the cat supplies that John had brought up the stairs to Abigail's front porch. After not getting any response to ringing the doorbell, Ralph went around to the rear of the house. It was at that point that he found John's body. Even though Ralph had been in combat during his stint in the Marine Corps, Ralph had never seen a body in a more shocking state than this. John's face and other exposed parts of his body had been torn apart like someone who had fallen into a pool of piranhas.

Ralph also noticed the back door to the house was open and a terrible smell seemed to be coming from the house. Even though he was curious about the open door and the disgusting smell, he knew enough not to touch anything or disturb what was most certainly a crime scene. John's body was also blocking the steps to the back porch. Ralph quickly returned to his car and immediately called the nine-one-one operator and reported what he had found. The nine-one-one operator told Ralph to get into his car, lock the doors, stay on the line, and wait for the police to respond.

Since it was apparent from Ralph's call that John Compton neither died of natural causes nor an accidental death, the nine-one-one operator immediately alerted the Waloma Police Department desk sergeant, who in turn used the police radio to alert Detectives Dave Warren and Amanda Slatter about the situation. Dave Warren was a seasoned, forty-eight year old detective who'd been with the Waloma Police Department since he completed his three year stint in the navy at age twenty-one. Amanda Slatter just turned thirty years old and was in her first year as a detective. Prior to that she served eleven years as a uniformed police officer with the Waloma Police Department.

Detectives Warren and Slatter were across town running down leads on a robbery when the call came in to them over the police radio. Since a homicide was way more important than a robbery, they immediately put the robbery investigation on hold and responded to the murder on 13th Street. The desk sergeant also dispatched four uniformed police officers to cordon off the area, put up crime scene tape, and keep the public away from the crime scene.

Waloma was a quiet town that would usually have only a dozen or so murders or mysterious deaths a year to investigate. As a consequence, this case would be top priority and the investigating detectives knew they would be expected to keep the top brass in the department informed on the progress of the case. If the Chief of Police was caught off guard and blindsided by questions about the case from the Mayor or the press, Dave and Amanda might be competing against each other for a position as a civilian security guard ten miles away at the Bentaloo Shopping Mall.

## Chapter 4

#### 5:00 pm Monday - April 8, 2019 at 1611 N. 13th Street, Waloma, Michigan

When Detectives Warren and Slatter arrived at the 13th street crime scene the yellow crime scene tape had already been strung up and four uniformed police officers stood guard around the perimeter to make sure that the crime scene was preserved intact. The first thing the detectives did was to examine the crime scene and take photos of John Compton's body and the surrounding area. Because it was apparent that the body had been ravaged by one or more animals, Dave called the Waloma Animal Control Department and asked for assistance in identifying what kind of animal or animals might have been responsible. Even if John's body had been ravaged by rats, racoons, or coyotes, it would be their job to deal with the offending vermin.

With those things attended to, the detectives took a statement from Ralph Bender, who reported the incident and, as instructed, had been waiting in his car until he was interviewed by the detectives. As Dave and Amanda were finishing up their interview with Ralph, one of the patrolmen standing guard to keep civilians from entering the crime scene alerted them that a Dr. Sandra Nakamura was behind the yellow tape at the crime scene border waiting to be escorted into the cordoned off area. Since Dave knew that Dr. Benjamin Phillips was the coroner, he was confused about who Dr. Nakamura was. As he approached the crime scene tape barrier he saw a small, young Asian woman, who didn't look old enough to be a doctor, holding out her hand to Dave.

"There must be some mistake," said Dave, "the victim is way beyond medical help."

"I'm aware of the situation," Sandra said as she shook Dave's hand. "I'm not a physician, I'm a veterinarian. I was sent by the Animal Control Department. I do consulting with the city pound and several of the independent animal rescue centers to treat domestic animals that are sick or have been mistreated by their former owners. I also deal with animals which have been injured by another animal at the shelter."

"I'm Detective Warren and this is Detective Slatter. We could really use your expertise to help us understand what happened here. Even if these wounds weren't the cause of death, whoever or whatever caused them may be an important component of this case. At any rate, whatever information you can provide will help us to assemble all of the pieces of this puzzle and put the whole picture in perspective."

After Dr. Nakamura made a close examination of the body, she explained that it appeared that the animal attack wounds were from a number of smaller animals and that most of them apparently made postmortem. By that time Dr. Phillips and his staff from the coroners office arrived and took over the examination of the body from Dr. Nakamura. Dr. Phillips' initial assessment was that the victim died of a broken neck and that, as Dr. Nakamura surmised, the animal wounds appeared to have been primarily postmortem. After inserting a probe into the body, he estimated the victim had been dead for about seven-and-a-half hours. That would put the time of death at approximately ten o'clock that morning. He cautioned that this information was preliminary and the confirmed cause of death would be divulged in his official report after an autopsy was completed.

## Chapter 5

#### 5:30 pm Monday - April 8, 2019 at 1611 N. 13th Street, Waloma, Michigan

When John Compton's body had been loaded into the coroner's van it enabled the detectives, the veterinarian, and the coroner to go up the stairs to the rear porch and see what was causing the vile combination of smells emanating from the open back door. There on the kitchen floor lay an elderly woman, or at least what was left of her. All of the woman's flesh had been eaten down to the bone and all that remained of her body were bones and severely deteriorated internal organs. The body was clad in what was left of a flowered house dress and a tattered apron. From the position of her body it was apparent that she had broken her back and died instantly. Most of the flesh on her face had been chewed off. Apparently the elderly woman had been up on a stool getting something out of a high cabinet when she slipped and fell to the floor breaking her back.

How long she had been there was not known, but it had certainly been a long time. Dr. Phillips guessed it had probably been several weeks. It was also apparent that her cats had become famished and unable to get to the large sack of kibble stored securely in the pantry. Although they could still get water from the dripping faucet in the bathroom, they had no food and finally fed on Abigail's lifeless body to stay alive. When what was left of Abigail's decaying flesh and internal organs became too putrid to eat, the cats again became famished. Thus, when John Compton opened the back door it presented an opportunity for fresh meat and freedom for the frenzied cadre of cats.

With an apparent accidental death the detectives believed that the now unidentifiable corpse on the kitchen floor belonged to the lady who lived in the house, one Abigail Johnson. They located an elderly neighbor from across the street who agreed to try and help them identify the body. The elderly neighbor indicated she had not spoken to Abigail for several years and since the face was no longer in tact, could only say that she recognized the house dress Abigail often wore when she was rocking on her porch in the evenings. Since Abigail had all her teeth pulled years earlier to accommodate her dentures, identifying the body via dental records wasn't an option. However, Amanda retrieved a hair brush from the bathroom and put it in an evidence bag. If all else failed the body could be identified by DNA.

In response to Dr. Nakamura's inquiry, the neighbor indicated that over the years Abigail amassed well over a dozen cats and never turned away a stray or feral cat that showed up at her door. Because of what happened and with the cats no longer in the area, Dr. Nakamura notified her contacts in the Waloma Animal Control Department that there might be a large number of new feral cats in the area and those cats could now be desensitized, deranged, dangerous, and hunting as a pack.

After another series of photos were taken inside of the house by the detectives, Dr Phillips had Abigail's body loaded in the coroner's van. The detectives' preliminary report would indicate a cursory search of the important records in Abigail's unlocked file cabinet didn't reveal any next of kin or close friends. They could not find a will or any insurance policy, other than the one Abigail had taken out to cover her final burial expenses. The speed dial on her wall phone listed only her doctor's office, the mail order pharmacy, the senior transportation dispatcher, the Waloma utilities department, the fire department, the police department, a local handyman, and the vet she used to take care of her cats when they became sick. With no next of kin to notify, her name could be immediately released.

## Chapter 6

#### 9:45 am Wednesday - April 10, 2019 at the Booze Barn, Waloma, Michigan

Bill Avery, the owner of the Booze Barn liquor store on 10th avenue, was putting cash in the register and getting ready to open his store at ten o'clock on Wednesday morning. However, his concentration was interrupted by loud pounding on the front entrance to the store. A one armed homeless veteran named Frank Brady was pounding frantically on the glass door. "Hold on," Bill hollered, "you're fifteen minutes early." Although Frank was a regular customer at the Booze Barn, he usually never came this early in the morning. Bill pointed to the hours of operation printed on the door and then used his fingers to indicate the fifteen minutes left before the store opened. However, Frank just kept on banging on the door and held his closed fist up to the side of his face indicating that he needed to use a phone.

Frank was only five foot eight inches tall and couldn't have weighed over 120 pounds soaking wet. He had been an inch taller and weighed at least thirty pounds more when he joined the Army at eighteen years old. However, with age, the loss of an arm, inactivity, and more booze than food he became a couch potato with neither a couch nor a television in his tattered tent. Even though Frank was small and elderly, Bill was concerned that with the adrenaline Frank must have flowing through his system he might break the glass door. So even though Bill never deviated from his posted schedule, he reluctantly opened the door to see what Frank was so excited about.

"It's Charlie Wilks," Frank blurted out. "He has been murdered in the alley behind your store. Whoever killed him messed him up pretty good. I could only tell it was Charlie because of the clothes he was wearing. You have to call the police right away."

Not wanting to alert the police on the rantings of a homeless alcoholic, Bill motioned with his hands to calm down and said "Take it down a notch Frank, just show me what you are talking about."

Bill called his assistant out of the back room to watch the store and then followed an excited Frank around the Booze Barn to the alley behind the store. He immediately could see what Frank was so alarmed about. Charlie was sitting on the ground with his back resting against the building and leaning sideways about thirty degrees against a dumpster. A half full, open bottle of bourbon lie on its side a couple of inches from Charlie's fleshless hand.

Charlie was not only dead but had been ripped apart with bare flesh chewed down to the bone on most of the exposed parts of his body. Like Frank, Charlie was a regular customer at the Booze Barn and Bill had been the one that sold him the bottle of bourbon just before closing time the night before. The grisly wounds on Charlie's face and arms were starting to dry out and it looked like he'd been dead for about ten hours. Bill immediately took out his smartphone and called the nine-one-one operator. Since it was apparent from Bill's call that Charlie Wilks neither died of natural causes nor an accident, the nine-one-one operator immediately alerted the Waloma Police Department. The desk sergeant on duty used the police radio to alert Detectives Dave Warren and Amanda Slatter about the situation.

Hank Draper, a reporter for Waloma Gazette, was also alerted to the situation by listening to his police scanner. Hank also heard about a murder on 13th Street two days earlier, but had been slow in getting to the place and was confronted with crime scene tape and uniformed officers who would neither answer his questions nor allow him to take any photos. This time Hank arrived on the scene before the police and got some gruesome shots of the crime scene before the police could put up the yellow tape and cordon off the area from the public. When Hank arrived, only Frank Brady was guarding the alley where his friend had been killed. Hank confirmed with Frank who the victim was before taking the photos. Frank was a little reluctant to let Hank take the pictures, but when Hank slipped Frank a twenty dollar bill and said "I was never here," Frank was more than willing to let Hank take his pictures and keep the matter quiet.

Not wanting to have his photos confiscated by the police, Hank returned to his car and took the photo storage chip containing the shots of Charlie Wilks' body out of his camera and put it in the car's glove compartment. Then he loaded a new photo storage chip into his camera and waited in his car until after the police arrived on the scene. When he did show up at the mouth to the alley, as expected, he was not allowed beyond the cordoned off area and not provided any information other than the alley was a crime scene and an investigation was underway.

## Chapter 7

#### 10:30 am Wednesday - April 10, 2019 behind the Booze Barn, Waloma, Michigan

In over twenty-five years of police work, Dave had seen a lot of dead bodies and gruesome crime scenes, but never anything quite so bizarre as the one he was looking at now and the ones he had seen two days earlier on 13th Street. However, in this case Charlie had lost a lot of blood before he died. With John Compton there had been very little blood lost indicating that his wounds were primarily made after he died and his heart stopped beating. After they took the initial crime scene photos, Dave and Amanda looked for any evidence that could explain what happened. The official cause and time of death would have to be determined by the coroner. However, both detectives thought Charlie Wilks died from the trauma and loss of blood from the multiple wounds on his body. However, most of the damage to his body had been postmortem.

If Charlie died of natural causes, or a drug overdose, and then been chewed up by racoons, rats, or some other vermin, there would have been very little blood around his body and on his clothing. Had he been attacked by coyotes, wolves, or bears the body would have been drug out into the alley and there would have been teeth marks on his exposed bones. If Charlie had been eaten by a larger animal his body parts would have been ripped apart and not left intact. Besides there had been no reported coyotes, wolves, or bears seen inside the city limits for several years.

Although all of these scenarios were possible, it so resembled the body of John Compton that Dave was convinced that Charlie had passed out in the alley and some time later killed by Abigail's pack of feral cats. Although Abigail's death was apparently the result of an accident, it appeared that both John Compton and Charlie Wilks were killed by the crazed pack of dangerous cats. Dave called Dr. Sandra Nakamura, Dr. Benjamin Phillips, and Chief of Police Roy Dobbins to update them on the situation.

While they waited for the Chief, the coroner, and the veterinarian to arrive, they interviewed Frank Brady since he was the one who had discovered the body and identified the victim. According to Frank, Charlie had done well panhandling down by the shopping center and told Frank he would pick up a bottle of bourbon that they could share. However, Frank suspected Charlie opened up the bottle on his way back to the homeless camp because he was an alcoholic and wanted to get a head start on their drinking party. Apparently Charlie ducked into the alley behind the Booze Barn late Tuesday night, sat down by the dumpster, opened the bottle and passed out after consuming half of the bourbon. When Charlie's tent was still unoccupied on Wednesday morning, Frank started to backtrack from the Booze Barn to see where Charlie stopped for a swig or two.

Charlie Wilk's body was left in place until Chief Dobbins, Dr. Phillips, and Dr. Nakamura arrived on the scene and examined the body. At that point Dr. Phillips directed his crew to load Charlie's body into the corner's van. Next Detectives Warren and Slater briefed the group on what they thought happened and what they discovered from their interview with Frank Brady. At that point Chief Dobbins requested that everyone involved reassemble at police headquarters in his conference room at one o'clock that afternoon to determine what could be done to address the problem and protect the community.

## Chapter 8

#### 1:00 pm Wednesday - April 10, 2019 at Waloma Police Headquarters, Waloma, Michigan

Chief Dobbins led off the meeting and introduced those in attendance which included himself, Detective David Warren, Detective Amanda Slater, Dr. Sandra Nakamura, Dr. Benjamin Phillips, Mr. Brian Bradford, and Mrs. Martha Compton. Mr. Bradford was the Director of the Waloma Animal Control Department. Since it was now apparent that the community was dealing with a dangerous group of feral cats, the Animal Control Department would be an important element in preventing any future fatalities brought on by the ravaging group of cats. Mrs. Compton was Chief Dobbins' secretary and would act as the recorder for the group. Mrs. Compton was also married to John Compton's younger brother.

Chief Dobbins told the group that he briefed Mayor Angela Wells on the situation as soon as he left the crime scene and with her approval was forming a task force to deal with the problem. He also told them that their participation in the task force was to be their number one priority and that their employers and supervisors agreed to the release time necessary to work on the task force. Chief Dobbins also told the group that any knowledge they gained about the case to date and any discussions taking place in task force meetings would be considered as privileged information and they would be expected to refrain from any discussions about the existence of, and information addressed by, the task force with anyone outside of the group.

The Chief indicated that since Dr. Nakamura was the only member of the task force who was not a public employee, she would be paid for the hours she devoted to the task force at the same rate she received for consultations with the Waloma Animal Shelter. With that matter addressed, the Chief asked Dr. Nakamura to give her professional assessment of what was happening and could be expected from the newly formulated mob of feline public enemies.

Dr. Nakamura thanked Chief Dobbins for including her on the task force and indicated that she wanted to give the task force her best assessment of the problem and a cogent recommendation about what to do to solve the problem. She requested she be given time to research the problem further and then make a formal presentation to the group. Chief Dobbins agreed and indicated that since the threat was so volatile, the task force would reconvene in the conference room at ten o'clock the next morning.

## Chapter 9

#### 10:00 am Thursday - April 11, 2019 at Waloma Police Headquarters, Waloma, Michigan

As scheduled, the now designated "Feral Cat Task Force" convened in the police headquarters conference room at ten in the morning. Dr. Nakamura indicated that in the limited time available, she put together a briefing, which should enhance the groups understanding of predictable feline behavior and what had been observed so far about the cats involved in the recent killings. She indicated that although she had a prepared presentation it was not meant to be a one-way communication, but rather a structure around which the group could formulate their recommendations and a unified course of action. Thus, she invited all members of the task force to interrupt and ask questions at any time during the presentation so that everyone would be informed and up to date with the latest information. It was important that all members of the task force be on the same page and understand what the group was up against so that a consensus could be reached on how to proceed.

With that caveat she began her presentation. "First, neither domestic nor feral cats have been known to hunt or eat humans. While cats are hunters and carnivores their game is usually small animals like rodents, snakes, or birds an individual cat can kill and consume in a single meal. However, in the current circumstance Abigail's sixteen cats were forced to eat from the already dead body in the house, because it was the only food available. When any animal is at the point of starvation they can radically change their source of food. In this case they didn't have to hunt or kill, as the food source was already present. Only when they exhausted their daily ration of kibble and gone several days without food had they started to eat Abigail's body. However, once they had eaten and grown accustomed to human flesh it became an acceptable, and eventually a preferable, source of nutrition.

One of the reason cats do not feed on humans, or even larger animals, is that they do not have the killing power to subdue these larger animals. Larger cats like tigers, cougars, jaguars, and panthers do have the power to kill and eat humans or other large animals, because of their size. Cats of any size do not hunt in packs. Even feral cats are nocturnal and solitary hunters and have never been known to hunt in packs. They may come together to eat around an already available source of food, like some discarded food in a garbage can, but they don't hunt live game as a pack."

At that point Amanda raised her hand indicating that she had a question. Sandra stopped her presentation and acknowledged Amanda. "What about lions?" asked Amanda, "don't they hunt in packs?"

"Yes they do," responded Sandra, "but they are the only large cat like animals to do so and are technically classified as canines not felines. The pack hunting behavior is probably one of the factors used to make that designation. The reason that lions hunt in packs is not because they are not big enough to kill their prey it is that they are not fast enough. Lions hunt in packs called prides to isolate, surround, and use an alternating charge method to tire out the prey to the point they can close in for the kill. It's much the same as used by other canines like wolves who use the pack hunting techniques to bring down larger and faster prey that they could only subdue by hunting as a pack."

"Then why are the cats we are dealing with hunting as a pack?" asked Dave.

"Out of necessity," responded Sandra. "They had already bonded as a pack while they were all living in the same house. However, they had no need to act as a pack or even to hunt for food as they all received their daily ration of kibble, which Abigail put in their bowls every day. When Abigail died in the fall from the stool in the kitchen, their food source was cut off. It was probably several days before they became hungry enough to eat the body of their dead benefactor. After that food source was exhausted they again became famished and emboldened to attack John Compton as a pack when he opened the door.

Their ability to bring down even an elderly man was assisted by John Compton's quick death caused by his falling down the stairs backwards and breaking his neck. The flesh they consumed from John's body lasted for two days at which point they went looking for more human prey. Even though a single cat doesn't eat that much, a large group of cats require a considerable amount of foot. The amount of food these cats consume is probably even more than normal, because they are now more active, they are competing with others in the pack for the available food, and they can't now count on a regular feeding schedule. Thus, are probably overeating because they don't know when their next meal will be available.

When Charlie Wilks passed out in the alley behind the Booze Barn he presented an easy target since he was already on the ground and couldn't effectively fight back because he was drunk and passed out. It was also in an isolated location where the cats could make their attack without being observed. So even though they had to Kill him, they had found an easy target in an ideal location.

Based on the number of cats involved it is apparent that they will again be looking for another human target in the near future. I should also point out that even though there might be enough meat left on a victim for a second meal, the victim is removed before they can return. In Abigail's case her body was left in place for weeks, so they could continue to eat on her day after day. That is why there was very little left of her body. Cats are also very picky eaters and will not consume dry rancid meat if fresh juicy meat is available."

"If there are no further questions for Dr. Nakamura," said Chief Dobbins, "I would like to have each of you think about what we are up against and develop your recommendations on how we should proceed with this unusual threat to our community. Mr. Bradford, I would like you to direct all your animal control officers to be especially alert for any stray cats in the area. For the time being focus your attention on the cat problem and put dogs and other animal problems on the back burner.

Dr. Nakamura, I would like you to consult with your professors at the MSU School of Veterinary Medicine who are the most knowledgeable on cat behavior. Also use the internet to research anything that might be helpful to us as we delve further into this unusual situation. If there has been any previous circumstances of feral cats hunting in pacts and attacking humans as a source of food anywhere on the planet we need to know how the situation was resolved. We will convene again at eight o'clock Monday morning, April 15th here in the conference room."

## Chapter 10

#### 7:30 am Friday - April 12, 2019 at Waloma City Hall, Waloma, Michigan

Betty Robinson was Mayor Angela Wells' secretary and always showed up at City Hall a half hour before the Mayor arrived to put things in order, make coffee, and lay out the daily schedule. She had no more than hung up her coat when the Mayor's phone started ringing off the hook. The first call was a reporter for the Chicago Daily news and the second was a reporter for the Herald-Palladium.

Both reporters wanted to get the Mayor's comments about the front page article in the Waloma Gazette regarding the man-eating cats in Waloma. As Betty was finishing up making the morning coffee a third call came in from the Associated Press again asking to talk to the Mayor about the dangerous pack of feral cats. Betty took down the information, informed them that the Mayor had not yet arrived, and assured the callers she would have Mayor Wells get back to them as soon as possible. Anxious to get a scoop on the story before any other other national media, the Associated Press reporter called back at seven fifty to see if the Mayor had seen the Waloma Gazette article yet and what she planned to do to protect the community.

When Mayor Angela Wells arrived at eight o'clock Betty handed her a cup of coffee, the morning paper, and then informed her about the calls from the press.

Angela took a sip of her coffee and opened the morning edition of the Waloma Gazette. The bold headline on the front page read "Night Stalker Cats Strike Again." Below the headline was a large color photo of Charlie Wilks leaning against the Booze Barn dumpster with flies crawling on his fleshless face.

The story below detailed the trio of victims that had been mutilated by the marauding and menacing pack of feral cats. Although there were no photos of Abigail Johnson and John Compton, the gruesome narrative left nothing to the imagination. Angela's fury was interrupted when Betty informed her that Chief Roy Dobbins was on line one. Angela picked up the receiver punched line one and said "Chief Dobbins, I was just about to call you, but it's your nickle so you go first."

"You usually just call me Roy, so there must be something serious you want to discuss with me. I just called to give you an update on the feral cat case and the results of our latest task force meeting."

"You're too late for that Chief Dobbins," Angela snapped sarcastically, "If I want to know what is going on with this case I'll just read about it in the morning paper or give Hank Draper a call over at the Waloma Gazette. If you haven't had a chance to look at today's issue of the Gazette you might want to get a copy. The front page article is about the three victims of Abigail Johnson's crazed pack of man-eating cats and has a large picture of Charlie Wilks leaning against a dumpster with his face eaten off."

"What are you talking about Angela? I haven't seen the morning paper yet, but everyone on the case and the entire task force has been instructed to keep this investigation under wraps until we get the situation under control or at least have a cogent plan to present. I don't know how the press got all that information and the photo, but I'm sure going to find out. If we have a leak in my department there is going to be hell to pay."

"There is already hell to pay Chief Dobbins, the story has been picked up in Bentaloo by the Herald-Palladium and even out-of-state in the Chicago Daily News. Hell, I've had two calls from the Associated Press who want to follow up on this spicy story for their AP clients all over the nation. During my campaign I promised to put Waloma back on the map, but this isn't exactly what I had in mind. If you have a leak in your operation you better put a cork in it fast or we're going to be the at the center of a real shit storm!" With that Angela slammed the receiver down and ended the call.

Hank Draper was a busy boy following his fortuitous break in getting to the alley behind the Booze Barn before the police and snapping photos of Charlie Wilks on Wednesday morning. He got more information from Frank Brady, when he showed up at the homeless camp with a couple of folding lawn chairs and a bottle of Jack Daniels.

He also contacted the elderly neighbor the police had brought in to identify Abigail's body. From his position on the outside of the cordoned off area on 13th street he had seen the police escort her into Abigail Johnson's house. A gift basket of fresh fruit and some smooth talking was all he needed to get a cup of coffee and a seat at her kitchen table. This enabled Hank to secure all the gory details about what had gone on inside of Abigail's house.

She told him about all the cats that had ravaged Abigail and then escaped. She also heard the detectives and the coroner comparing what happened to Abigail and the man who was mauled at the bottom of the stairs to Abigail's back porch. She was more than happy to share all these details with Hank and he actually found it difficult to break away from the talkative woman after he secured all the information he needed.

Finally, Hank put all his investigative reporting skills to work and got more information by just keeping his ear to the ground. Of course he had recorded all the chatter on the police radio he intercepted on his police scanner. He also found a seat at the local bar frequented by the police and listened carefully and stealthily to what the patrolmen who had been at the crime scenes were talking about among themselves. For most of these young patrolmen this was the most bizarre situation they ever experienced.

## Chapter 11

#### 1:30 am Sunday - April 14, 2019 at the Homeless Camp, Waloma, Michigan

Frank Brady was awakened in his tent by a demanding bladder. For most of his life Frank had always been able to sleep peacefully through the night. However, as he became older that luxury faded and he now got up once or twice a night to relieve himself. So Frank followed his nightly routine, climbed out of his sleeping bag, unzipped the tent, and walked out behind his tent to take a leak. Although it was in the middle of the night, the moon provided all the light necessary for Frank to find his way about fifteen feet behind his tent to his favorite bush. He had made this same trek so many times before he could have done it with his eyes closed.

However, tonight he felt he was being watched. He sure didn't want to be arrested for indecent exposure so he stepped deeper into the dense brush that surrounded the homeless camp even though the twigs on the ground dug into his bare feet. "What the hell," he thought, "if I get arrested the bunks in the jail are more comfortable than the hard ground and the food they serve can't be much worse that what they are dishing out at the mission."

Just as he turned to return to his tent the attack took place. Suddenly Frank was beset with what seemed like a hundred cats all at the same time. They were biting and scratching at him at every point on his body. He used his only arm to try and sweep them away from his face, but they just kept hanging on and becoming more aggressive. Having seen what happened to his friend Charlie Wilks, Frank knew he needed to stay on his feet and continue fighting off his attackers. Although his first instinct was to fall to the ground and roll to dislodge the cats his brain told him that falling to the ground would subject him to even more cats and make matters even worse.

Frank's screaming awoke his fellow homeless neighbors and they came out of their tents and makeshift shelters with flashlights focused on the source of the screaming. The flashlight beams and the advancing homeless group coming to assist Frank spooked the ravaging cats. They broke off their attack and disappeared into the night. One of Frank's homeless friends had a discarded cell phone that could be used for emergency only. He reached the nine-one-one operator and told her they needed emergency medical help and gave her the location. The aid vehicle showed up about five minutes after the call was received and the paramedics attended to his wounds as they rushed Frank to the emergency room at Waloma Community Hospital.

The nine-one-one operator also contacted the Waloma Police Department, who roused Detectives Warren and Slatter from a sound sleep in their respective homes to respond to the suspected feral cat attack. Within an hour both detectives were on the scene at the homeless camp taking statements from those who had been involved with saving Frank and disbursing the pack of hungry cats. According to these statements, the number of cats who participated in the attack ranged from twenty-five to thirty.

Dave and Amanda wanted to interview Frank Brady, but he was under sedation in the emergency room and had lost a great deal of blood. The hospital staff told the detectives that Frank would probably not be in a position to answer their questions for a couple of days and that he would be transferred to the Veteran's Hospital in Bentaloo once his condition had stabilized. Because nothing more could be done at that point, Dave waited until seven o'clock in the morning to call Chief Dobbins at home and report the latest incident.

## Chapter 12

#### 2:00 am Sunday - April 14, 2019 at the Waloma Railroad Switching Yard, Waloma, Michigan

The pack of cats that attacked Frank Brady were still hungry. They left the homeless camp area and went six blocks west to the railroad switching yard. For its population, Waloma had a very large switching yard. However, now that most of the large industry and three-fourths of the population had left, only four of the twelve tracks in the switching yard were in use. By midnight the evening switching crew had finished their work and put together the freight train that was due to leave for Chicago at six-thirty that morning.

The alpha cat for the pack picked up the scent of a potential meal and was leading his pack toward that prey. The prey was a hobo who boarded an open boxcar as soon as the evening switch crew assembled the westbound freight on track number one. The transit hobo had only arrived in Waloma a day before and would not be missed by anyone. Earlier that night he had finished a meal from scraps he had rummaged from a dumpster behind a downtown Waloma restaurant.

With his stomach full and being exhausted from a day panhandling and rummaging through dumpsters, the hobo boarded the empty boxcar and settled down on his backpack for the next leg of his journey. Being comfortable and contented he fell asleep with the thought that when he woke up from his snooze he would be in the Windy City ready for his next adventure. When the cats located their prey he was already dozing in the empty boxcar. Leaping up the four feet through the open boxcar door was a piece of cake for cats used to jumping up into the top of five foot dumpsters. Actually it was easier for the cats to get into the boxcar than it was for the old hobo, and he did so on a daily basis.

Unfortunately the old hobo was awakened before the train even left the Waloma switching yard. It was a very rude awakening, but much too late to prevent the horrible death he was to experience. At two o'clock in the morning there was no one around to hear the panicked screams of the hobo that echoed in the empty boxcar. So his big city adventure would never happen. However, the pack of cats that had joined the hobo, for their dinner train excursion, would wake up from their post meal snooze in the Windy City rested and ready for their big city adventure.

The pack of twenty-seven cats in the boxcar was only one of three packs that had emanated from the original sixteen cats, which had escaped from Abigail Johnson's house on 13th Street. Each pack now had between twenty-five and thirty cats. The group had grown exponentially in the short time since Abigail's cats attacked John Compton and become embolden to hunt human prey. The rapid rise in the number of man-eating cats was fueled by an already large number of feral cats in the Waloma area.

Because Waloma was a declining town, those residents who were leaving town often just turned their cats loose and hoped they might find a new home somewhere in the community. Also the families of older residents who either died of old age, moved in with their children, or moved to a nursing home released their parent's cats into the streets to fend for themselves. Many times these elderly people, like Abigail, had amassed a large number of cats. Those elderly parents who were moving to a new home where cats were not allowed were very reticent to abandon their cats and put them out on the street. However, they finally agreed with their children to the release of their beloved pets into the wild, because they were told that the alternative was to have the cats put down.

These domestic turned feral cats now needed to hunt small rodents or find discarded food in trashcans or dumpsters on the streets and alleys of Waloma. Because most of these cats had not been neutered, there was a large outcropping of new feral cats being born and trained to subsist on their own. This large feral cat population was quick to join the man-eating cat hunting packs and have all the fresh meat they needed whenever they got hungry.

Those still domesticated cats who would be let out at night by their owners would also join these hunting packs at night and then return to their domestic homes to sleep during the day. However, several of these domestic cats never returned to their homes because they preferred the fresh meat over the dry kibble they were fed in captivity. Now all of these cats could exist without bondage or human patronage by embracing humans as their new, readily available, and easily subdued food source. They had, thus, jumped to the top of the food chain.

## Chapter 13

#### 2:30 am Sunday - April 14, 2019 at the Waloma Community Hospital, Waloma, Michigan

A young nurse named Brenda Wilson had just finished her shift at the hospital and was dead tired. She couldn't wait to get home and get some sleep after an exceptionally busy day in the emergency room. Brenda wondered if she even had the energy to make it to her bus stop only two blocks away. The last patient she attended to that morning was a one armed man named Frank Brady. She was traumatized by seeing what happened to him and even more horrified when she found out his injuries were caused by an unprovoked attack from a pack of cats that were trying to eat him alive.

Brenda was a real cat lover and had two cats of her own. Although she was tired she knew that the first thing she needed to do when she got home was to feed the cats. She would end up feeding the cats even before she could board her bus. They didn't find what was left of Brenda's body until some two hours later, long after hunting pack number two had dined and dashed.

At about the same time, the cats in hunting pack number three were climbing a tree where two young ten year old boys were sleeping in the tree-house they had just completed a couple of days before. The tree-house was located in a wooded area just a short distance from the housing area where the two boys lived. They had finally convinced their parents that they were old enough to spend the night outside by themselves. After all it was not a school night and next year they would be old enough to join the Boy Scouts and go camping all the time. They had shown their parents the very stable tree-house that was only about eight feet off the ground, had a sturdy rope ladder, and a roof to keep them dry in case they would encounter any April showers, prevalent in Michigan that time of year.

After the boys had eaten all of the junk food snacks they packed for their outing and scared themselves silly telling ghost stories, they finally fell asleep in their sleeping bags only to become ensconced in an even scarier ordeal themselves. When the boys didn't return home for breakfast and to get cleaned up for church on Sunday morning, their parents went to the tree-house and discovered the unbelievable tragedy. The two young boys would be the sixth and seventh humans to be accosted by what the press was now calling "The Demon Cats."

## Chapter 14

#### 9:00 am Monday - April 15, 2019 at the Chicago Railroad Switching Yard, Chicago, Illinois

The freight train from Waloma arrived at the main switching yard in Chicago after a two-and-a-half hour trip. As instructed by the yardmaster the train would be pulled onto track three to be switched out by the afternoon switching crew. The brakemen from the incoming train set hand brakes on the downhill three cars then detached the engine and sent it to the roundhouse for service. Once the train stopped moving on track three, the twenty-seven feral cats from Waloma jumped out of the open boxcar and headed into the inner city.

It would be four hours later when the afternoon switching crew was bleeding off the air from each rail car for switching when the brakemen would discover the lifeless and fleshless hobo in the boxcar. By that time the pack of demon cats from Waloma had moved into their new environment and started to expand their numbers. Although it would not be until Wednesday before there would be any new killings in Chicago by these demon cats, they were scoping out the neighborhood, picking up new recruits, and getting the lay of the land.

Their new killing grounds would be ideal because of the freshly killed, wounded, and unconscious humans who would be left in the wake of gang warfare, muggings, and other violent crimes taking place in center of this large city. Following their now familiar pattern they would expand their numbers rapidly and break into new hunting packs of about twenty cats each.

The size of the hunting packs had now been reduced, because the man eating cats had become more efficient and proficient in bringing down their human prey. Besides the average sized human would not provide enough surface area to accommodate more than twenty biting and scratching cats. Because the news article about the "Demon Cats in Waloma" had appeared in the Chicago Daily News the previous week, the police and animal control officers would take less time than their counterparts in Waloma to figure out what was going on in their city.

As the nation's main rail shipping hub, Chicago would not only be a fertile ground for the now burgeoning packs of demon cats, it would also be the major point where these predators would spread north, east, west and south using the rail switching yard, empty boxcars, and outgoing trains as their method of moving into new areas. Now that the cats had learned how to easily gain access to, and egress from, the empty boxcars, they would use this method to spread to other major cities throughout the nation in their quest for new unsuspecting prey or to escape from man's efforts to exterminate them in cities where they had become an intolerable menace. Besides, the empty boxcars were always available in the huge switching yard and provided a great place for the cats to hide and sleep during the day undetected.

By the time the politicians and bureaucrats had discovered this, the expanded hunting grounds for the demon cats would have already taken place. Thus, like the metastasis of cancer cells in the body, the entire nation would soon be infected with this threat to human life. So what started out as a small isolated problem in a small town would rapidly become a national **** CATaclysmic CATastrophe.

## Chapter 15

#### 10:00 am Monday - April 15, 2019 at Waloma Police Headquarters, Waloma, Michigan

As scheduled, the Feral Cat Task Force took their seats around the conference table in the now familiar police headquarters conference room. Chief Dobbins opened the meeting and asked Detective Warren to brief the group on what had happened since their last meeting. Dave reported on the Frank Brady attack by the feral cat hunting pack as well as the fatal attacks on Brenda Wilson and the two ten year old boys that had all happened early Sunday morning, apparently by two or more separate hunting packs. As of yet, nobody in Waloma knew about the hobo and the pack of demon cats in the empty boxcar on the freight train that had just arrived in Chicago.

Next Chief Dobbins asked Brian Bradford to bring the group up to date on what was happening in the Animal Control Department. Brian said that he put all his people on the feral cat detail and they captured so many feral cats they exceeded their shelter capacity and shipped a large number of the new feral cats to shelters in Bentaloo and other towns in the area. He also reported that even though his animal control officers were more aggressive in bringing in all the feral cats they could find, there were far fewer reports of stray and feral cats by people in the community. One reason was apparently that most of the complaints the Animal Control Department usually received came from residents or businesses who reported cats scrounging through their trash cans or begging for food. Now that the cats had found another more reliable food source, they were not out during the day making a pest of themselves. Now they were sleeping during the day and hiding out of sight.

Next Chief Dobbins held up a copy of the Friday, April 13th Waloma Gazette. "By now I'm sure you have all seen this alarming article. It's alarming to the community because they are now scared to be out at night. It's alarming to me because I want to know how Hank Draper got this photo and all of the details he included in his article. As I mentioned to you last Thursday, we need to keep a lid on this situation until we have the matter under control. If anyone knows how this information leaked out, please see me after the meeting and I will keep your information confidential. The Mayor is quite upset about this article and raked me over the coals because I had assured her we would not make any of this information public. She is now beset by an angry community and a very tenaciously curious press corps. Now that the **'cat's out of the bag** ' it is going to be much more difficult to proceed with everyone looking over our shoulder."

Dr. Nakamura said that she wanted to address those factors that had brought about the devastation to this point and what was likely to happen in the future as a result. She listed these factors on a power point presentation in order of importance. First she explained how and why the man-eating cat population was expanding so rapidly. Second she described how the feral cats were becoming more proficient in finding and killing their human prey. "They have gone from a situation where they were forced to eat an already dead human to survive to being so utterly famished they attacked an elderly, but alive, human. Then they settled down and concentrated on easy to subdue prey that were drunk, handicapped, tired, asleep, or small. However, they are now becoming more proficient at killing and more embolden with each kill. Pretty soon they will be willing and able to attack any human even a healthy person in good physical condition.

Third, they have broken into separate hunting packs that operate independently under the leadership of an alpha cat. This makes it harder to fight against them as they are in multiple places at the same time. Fourth, feral cat populations have been kept in check by two factors. Those are the availability of food and their vulnerability to predators. Now they have an unlimited supply of food and can combine forces to fight off all of their traditional predators.

They say that five hyenas can subdue an adult lion. Now five of these more aggressive and embolden cats are more than equal to any venomous snake, hawk, raccoon, dog, or coyote. Even though coyotes hunt in packs they have much smaller packs than the cats now hunt with. Fifth, the packs will split up during the day and It is almost impossible to find them under porches, in trees, in vacant buildings, inside someone's home, and a thousand other places where a cat can find refuge. Because they are bonded as a pack, even if they are not disbursed in small groups, a single cat can communicate to other pack members in the area that they are in trouble and its pack mates will respond and come to the aid of the cat under attack.

The sixth complication, and the one that will make it very difficult to address this problem, is that you can't tell the good cats from the bad cats. It's not like we can go after the tabby cats and spare all the others. The witnesses to Frank Brady's attack said that there were cats of all different sizes, breeds, and colorization in the pack. One witness even thought that a couple of them wore collars.

In my veterinary practice there have been a large number of cat owners who brought their cats in to me because the cats refuse to eat, are no longer affectionate with their families, sleep all day, and become aggressive if their owners do not let them out at night. So even though I believe that these cats are participating in the hunting packs at night these owners, and a significant portion of the community, would be incensed if I turned their pets over to animal control or suggested that they be euthanized."

## Chapter 16

#### 6:00 pm Tuesday - April 16, 2019 at 1402 Wyman Road, Bentaloo, Michigan

Pamela Benton was a small woman with big heart. Her husband had died four years ago and left Pamela with a large house on several acres and a very adequate bankroll. Even before her husband passed away, Pamela had volunteered to foster cats that the local animal control shelter could not accommodate or find homes for. Now that she was alone in the big house she agreed to take whatever overflow the shelter had so they wouldn't have to euthanize the cats. A large influx of cats from neighboring Waloma put the Bentaloo Animal Control Shelter in that position so they called to let her know they would be forced to put down all the new cats from Waloma if she couldn't accommodate them.

Within an hour Pamela showed up in her full sized pickup truck with a large canopy on the back. The animal control officers loaded about twenty-four of the newly arrived cats into the back of her truck and sent her on her way. When Pamela got home and opened up the back hatch of the canopy to load the cats into crates so she could take them into the house, they immediately pounced on her and brought her to the ground. So her convictions about not killing a defenseless animal was not reciprocated by her newly acquired feline guests. Because Pamela's house was set back from the road and behind a large hedge, none of the passing vehicles would be able to see the attack or hear her frantic calls for help. After the cats had eaten their fill they would leave what was left of Pamela in her driveway and head for the center of town to start their new life in Bentaloo.

By Thursday there would be two demon cat hunting packs in Bentaloo and two new human fatalities related to the man-eating cats. Because of the articles in The Herald-Palladium, the authorities in Bentaloo knew they were probably up against the same calamity they had been reading about in the newspaper that was happening just ten miles away in Waloma. Bentaloo was a city of about one hundred thousand people and, like Waloma, had seen a decline in population and prosperity over the last ten years. Bentaloo still had a plant that produced parts for the automobile manufactures in Detroit and a small electronics manufacturing company. However, as with other cities in the rust belt states, it had seen many of the jobs moved out of the country to places with lower wages and less regulations. By mid-summer Bentaloo would have nine independent hunting packs of demon cats.

## Chapter 17

#### 8:00 am Monday - August 26, 2019 in the White House Situation Room, Washington D.C.

An angry President Mathew Gray sat at the head of the table. Ironically, Gray was an appropriate last name for the tall and fit young President, because his father had been black and his mother had been white. Both of his parents died early and he'd been raised by his white, middle class grandparents. It was abnormal to see him angry, as he was usually a very even tempered man who could handle almost any urgent and consequential situation with calm and reason. Of course as the leader of the free world there were always plenty of urgent and consequential problems to deal with every day. None, however, as urgent and consequential as the one he was facing now.

Because of the urgent and consequential nature of the demon cat threat, that by the end of August had spread across the nation, President Gray assembled the group he thought could most effectively deal with the demon cat problem in the White House Situation Room. Around the table with him were his Vice President, National Security Adviser, FEMA Director, Attorney General, several department secretaries, and two army generals. The room was silent as the President focused on a huge screen showing a map of the United States. Over the last two months he had looked at this map on almost a daily basis as more states were shown in red reflecting how aggressively the threat had spread across the country. Now the whole country was red.

"I can't believe we haven't been able to get a handle on this situation yet," the President said in disgust. He then turned to General Robert Mason, the Army Chief of Staff. "Well Bob," Gray said, "Give me the good news first."

"Sir, I'm afraid the only good news is that it is morning and all the cats have disbursed and are now sleeping," Mason responded.

"Wow, that's encouraging, now give me the bad news."

General Mason then turned to Lt. General Andrew Franklin and said "Andy bring us up to date on the magnitude of the problem."

Andrew Franklin was the titular head of all national guard troops around the nation. Since active duty troops had not been deployed to any of the states to address the problem yet, Franklin was the point man for the Department of Defense to address the threat. Although in crisis like this, each state's national guard units would report to the governor of that state for operational command, they were paid with federal funds and General Franklin would be the link between each state's adjutant general and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

"As you can see on the map," Franklin began, "Every state has now been infected by the demon cat problem. Any city with a population of over ten thousand now has at least one pack of twenty demon cats. Large cities have hundreds of demon cat hunting packs operating within their metropolitan areas. The impact on human life is that each pack will kill over one hundred and eighty full size humans each year. If the prey were small like a child it would be twice that much.

In three-and-a-half months this catastrophe has claimed the lives of 483,714 Americans. The death rate has been doubling each month since mid-April. If the death rate were to stabilize at it's present level, we are looking at an annual death count of 3,221,000, which would be about one percent of our total population. To put that in perspective the Spanish Flu pandemic in 1918 only killed about 675,000 Americans and it lasted for over two years. This demon cat infestation is on track to become the worst disaster in our history and it has only been going on for less than four months."

"Why is it General Franklin," injected Gray, "that we can defeat any army of intelligent and heavily armed humans on earth, but we can't subdue a group of small unarmed animals with brains the size of golf balls?

"In military terms," Franklin replied, "they have very effective tactics, have superior capabilities, are extremely evasive, have powerful allies, and have unlimited reinforcements."

"That sounds rather sophisticated for a group of cats," Gray retorted, "I know that the ancient Egyptians thought these little critters were gods, but I certainly don't. I have a full schedule of meetings and events today so we're going to have to conclude this session. However, General Franklin I would like you to expand on your military assessment when we meet again at 0800 hours tomorrow. I would also like to know what we are doing to keep this thing from spreading further, and what we have done so far to address the threat. That's it for today, do your homework and I'll see you all tomorrow morning." 

## Chapter 18

#### 8:00 am Tuesday - August 27, 2019 in the White House Situation Room, Washington D.C.

All the participants from the previous day were in attendance and the meeting started at exactly 0800 hours. Since the map of fifty red states had not changed, General Franklin clicked his controller to show the first slide in his presentation. "As you directed Mr. President, I have prepared a briefing to expand on the the points I made at yesterdays meeting. Those points were that in military terms the demon cats have very effective tactics, have superior capabilities, are extremely evasive, have powerful allies, and have unlimited reinforcements.

With regard to **effecctive tactics** the demon cat packs utilize several battlefield techniques that make them a difficult enemy to conquer. We know that they are communicating their attack, but we can't intercept their communications, since they don't speak any language or code we can interpret or decipher. However, they definitely have a strong command and control mechanism that enables them to assemble, select their target, carry out a very coordinated attack, and then disburse until the next attack. Like any group of predators working as a pack, they are very skilled at focusing on the weakest and most vulnerable target at the most opportune time.

At the Army War College they taught us that any enemy who could identify the weakest point in your defenses and strike when you were least expecting it is a very dangerous foe indeed. The demon cats can also operate behind enemy lines without being detected. They use lethal, close contact weapons, which preclude us from using our traditional weapons and tactics. If we were to try and save someone under attack with guns or flame throwers, it would kill the victim and probably only kill or injure a couple of cats. By making a coordinated multi-point attack they keep their victim from having the ability to concentrate on a single enemy and, thus, they reduce their casualties.

The demon cats have several **superior capabilities** that give them an advantage over their adversaries. They can see at night and their victims can't. They are very stealthy in that they can hear us, but we can't hear them. Cats are one of the most silent hunters on the planet. Thus, they always have the element of surprise. They have a very keen sense of smell. They can smell us but we can't smell them. They can also attack from a multitude of platforms, some above you and some below you. They have superior speed and agility so you can't avoid them or catch them. Their small size enables them to fit through confined spaces that their pursuers can't get through.

Each cat has five weapons that can be used independently or in combination. It can hang onto a victim with four sets of claws and still be able to use its teeth to attack its victim. Conversely it can hang onto the victim with its teeth and use its four sets of claws to rip into the prey. If the victim attempts to dislodge the cat it will cause the victim more pain than it does to the cat. Multiply those five weapons times the twenty cats in a hunting pack and it amounts to being assaulted by a hundred weapons all at once. That should give you some idea of what a single human is confronted with during an attack.

As far as being **extremely evasive** they also have several factors that make them a difficult target. As we have seen they can quickly assemble, carry out their attack, reap their nutritional booty, and then disburse and hide or fade back into the community until the next attack. This was similar to our Revolutionary War Minute Men, who would assemble, attack, and then disburse and fade back into the community. This made them a difficult target for the formal British Army regiments, who all wore red coats and used traditional formations and tactics. Since our Minute Men did not wear uniforms, they were virtually impossible to distinguish from the general community.

When a demon cat hunting pack disburses, each individual cat can find its own hiding place to sleep until the next attack. As we have discussed in previous meetings, given their size, dexterity, and cunning, they can hide almost anywhere. The cats can also use their speed, size, agility, and climbing capabilities to evade a human pursuer in virtually any urban environment.

With regard to **powerful allies** , the cats have more than you might expect. In addition to the ASPCA there are a number of other animal rights groups that have prevented cities, counties, and states from taking a more aggressive stance to mitigate this threat. At this time there are over a thousand lawsuits against various municipal governments by both organizations and individuals that are pending in the courts. In those jurisdictions, any further actions against the cats has been put in abeyance pending the outcome of those lawsuits in the courts. Some lawsuits against government agencies have already been settled in favor of the plaintiffs for large sums of money. That is causing governments to back away from some of their more aggressive plans of action.

In addition there are organized groups of people who are communicating over social media and putting up an armed resistance against violating their rights to keep cats and not have to license, neuter, or confine them. These groups have on occasion clashed with armed vigilante groups who are taking things into their own hands and hunting the demon cats because they don't think that their state and local governments are being aggressive enough in dealing with these man-eating predators.

My assessment about **unlimited reinforcements** is based on what we have experienced around the country. So far we have killed thousands of suspected demon cats, however, they are breading faster than we can exterminate them. As you probably know cats are one of the most prolific breeding mammals on the planet. They have a fairly short two month gestation period and produce an average of four kittens per litter. A female cat can have as many as five litters in a single year. Thus, the average female cat can produce over twenty offspring per year. The kittens ween quickly, grow fast, learn adroitly, and are able to become active pack hunters in within a couple of months after they are born.

Even though the kittens being born today will not be active hunters for two months, those feral cats born earlier that would have died of starvation before the availability of human victims are now maturing and becoming active members of the hunting packs. Given the methods used to date and the restrictions we are facing, the enemy is growing in strength not being depleted. In military terms we are losing the battle of attrition."

At that point General Franklin switched the large monitor back to the demon cat encroachment map and asked for questions. All eyes turned to the President as protocol would give him a chance to ask his questions before any other member of the group.

"General Franklin I can't believe," said President Gray, "that individuals and organizations would be getting in our way and hampering our efforts to solve this problem, given the gravity of the situation!"

"As far as organizations are concerned," responded Franklin, "their focus is very narrow. They are advocacy groups and are not expected to be objective. They were formed and are funded to advocate for animals. As far as individuals are concerned there are well meaning folks who love cats and think that it is inhumane to hunt them down or poison all cats indiscriminately without knowing which cats are the bad ones.

However, there are groups and individuals who are more concerned about 'their individual rights' than they are about what is right for their entire community. These are the same folks who refuse to have their children vaccinated, even though the medical experts and sometimes even the law says they should do so. Here they are more concerned about their rights and prejudices than about their own children's health or the health of other people in the community who could become infected by exposure to those un-inoculated children.

In your attempt to get meaningful gun control legislation Mr. President, you have also run into organizations and individuals who fervently resist any law that would restrict the sale of automatic assault weapons, armor piercing ammunition, and large magazines, even though there is no logical reason for a civilian to own one of these weapons. So even though hundreds of adults and children are being slaughtered in schools, churches, and a host of other venues every year, they still fight any attempt to take these weapons off the street. There are also some people and groups that think that the whole demon cat problem is overblown and just more fake news and media hoopla.

The President rose and said "Thank you General Franklin for an excellent presentation, I believe that most of us have not looked at this challenge in terms of the military challenges you have laid out today. For tomorrow I would like to look further into how this problem is spreading and how we can keep it from growing even worse. We will convene at 0800 hours tomorrow. Now we all have a country to run so this meeting is adjourned."

## Chapter 19

#### 8:00 am Wednesday - August 28, 2019 in the White House Situation Room, Washington D.C.

The Wednesday session was started by the Secretary of Homeland Security Don Bennett. On the large overhead screen was the familiar map of the United States, but now each state had a color that related to the week that state had its first reported demon cat attack. The map also had arrows showing from where the threat originated and the routes it had taken as it moved across the country.

"Mr. President, at our last meeting you asked us to update you on how, and how severely, the demon cat threat is spreading. In previous briefings the Secretary of Transportation and the Director of the FBI have pointed out how the cats have migrated via trains, barges, trucks, and even family vehicles. That migration was how the demon cats moved by their own ingenuity and by the misguided or unknowing actions of people who unintentionally helped to facilitate that migration. The reason that I am conducting today's briefing is that we have discovered an entirely new and sinister wrinkle in the demon cat infestation spread."

With that lead-in, Secretary Bennett displayed a photo of twelve separate pens of cats housed in a large enclosure. In some of the pens a pack of cats were attacking a human and in others the cats had subdued the human victim and were feeding on the body. "This photo was extracted from an email that we intercepted about a week ago.

At that time we didn't know where this facility was, who was operating it, and how it was being used to exacerbate the demon cat spread. Two days ago we located the facility on a rural farm in Nebraska. We discovered this farm when several individuals that were on our watch list were followed there. We put the facility under surveillance and noticed a constant stream of small trucks flowing into and out of the facility.

From our surveillance photos we could tell that the facility was defended by heavily armed guards not visible from the road. Therefore, we enlisted the help of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) and elements of the Nebraska Army National Guard to capture the facility. We also found and liberated a number of prisoners who were being held in the facility to be fed to the cats. Had we not discovered this facility, because of the watch list surveillance, nobody would have thought anything was out of the ordinary.

As you can see from the overhead shot of this farm taken by one of our reconnaissance drones, this farm looks just like the thousands of other farms in the area. From the outside the large barn looks very innocent. On the inside, however, it has three floors, which each contain a dozen or so cat pens. This next slide shows the fully utilized cat pens on the other floors that our photographers took after we had captured the facility.

All the pens are the same and hold about twenty-five adult cats. When the females become pregnant they have their litter in the pen and feed with the other cats on the human victim. After the kittens have been weened, they join the adult cats feeding on the human prey. As soon as they are old enough they will follow the training they are seeing from the adult demon cats and become an active part of the hunting pack.

Until the breeding produces cats mature enough to assist in the kill, the facility was bringing in feral cats from areas that had not yet become infected. If the people securing these feral cats are questioned about what they are doing they just say they are concerned citizens just trying to protect the community. So fifteen cats from the non-infected areas are put in a pen with ten demon cats and after a day or so without food the famished feral cats join the demon cats in killing and eating the live human who is involuntary introduced into the pen of cats. Once a pack has proved its killing capabilities the pack would be put on a truck and taken to a target location and released."

President Gray's face reflected his shock and disbelief in what he was seeing. "Who is running this operation and why?"

"Our best intelligence is that the operation is funded and operated by ISIS. It appears that this particular facility has been in operation for approximately three months, just about two weeks after the article about demon cats first appeared in the Chicago Daily News. Whoever was the mastermind behind this particular operation secured this farm and started to put together the pens inside of the barn even before they populated it with demon cats. The people operating the facility that survived our assault have been incarcerated and are being questioned, but so far they have refused to give us any information we can use. However, from the files we confiscated it is apparent that there are several similar facilities in other regions which are doing the same thing.

As for the why, it is a way ISIS can easily and effectively terrorize the "Great Demon America" by using its own demon cats to spread terror and kill even more people than they could with bombs, vehicle attacks, hijacked commercial aircraft, and mass shootings. And as a bonus, the perpetrators don't even have to sacrifice themselves to carry out their evil deeds. From the files we confiscated we also learned how they secured packs of demon cats to start their breeding and training operation.

Apparently they would go to a city with several active demon cat hunting packs and set a trap by putting a hobbled and gagged American infidel in an alley equipped with a net that would fall on the pack after they had subdued and were feeding on the victim. ISIS members with the necessary protective equipment then loaded the demon cats into a truck and took them to the breeding, training, and distribution facility. Although ISIS has not claimed responsibility for spreading the demon cat menace, because they didn't want to tip us off about their ongoing operations, we have seen some propaganda on their web sites which postulates that Allah has sent the cats to cleanse the World of disbelievers.

We can't capture demon cats that way, because we are unwilling to sacrifice a living human as bait for such an operation. In our society, even people given the death penalty are provided a quick and humane execution. Being eaten alive by a pack of hungry cats would certainly be considered to be a cruel and unusual punishment. However, for them they don't mind sacrificing an innocent American infidel for such an operation. In fact the humans they feed to the cats in the breeding, training, and distribution facilities are also innocent American infidels they capture and truck into the facility. We found a confinement area where they kept these people before they fed them to the demon cats alive.

That way they could train feral cats to accept human flesh as a viable food and to attack and kill their prey under the tutelage of established demon cats, the most dominate of which would become the alpha cat for that pack. Behind the facility there was a large pit where the human remains left over after the cats had feasted were discarded and then covered with soiled sand from the large cat pen litter boxes ready for the next layer of human remains. Our best guess is that there are at least five similar facilities being operated in rural areas by local ISIS cells at strategic distribution sites around the country"

"This explains," said President Gray, "Why the demon cat threat has spread faster than we thought it would and how it got so efficiently to every community who's population would support a twenty cat hunting pack. Now that we know about these facilities we need to locate them all and put them out of business. It won't undue the damage done to date, but it will stop it from spreading further. For tomorrows briefing I want to review what steps we have taken to date and any recommendations for an effective method of ending the demon cat infestation." With that President Gray stood up and departed the Situation Room.

## Chapter 20

#### 9:00 am Wednesday - August 28, 2019 at Chicago City Hall, Chicago, Illinois

Mayor Lori Babcock opened the meeting of the Chicago City council. "Our most pressing problem and our first order of business is the demon cat infestation. As you know, Arnold Warren, the Director of the Chicago Animal Care and Control Department has been our point man on this problem. I have asked Arnie to bring us up to date on the situation and to answer questions about how our efforts to address the problem are fairing. The floor is all your's Arnie."

"Madame Mayor and members of the City Council," Arnie began, "I will give you all the latest information I have on the situation and attempt to address your questions. As you know the demon cat infestation started in Waloma, Michigan on April 8th and arrived here via a boxcar on April 15th. As such, we were the first major city in the country to be invaded by the demon cats. According to the latest reports from the Chicago Police Department there have been 23,880 deaths as of this morning. We estimate that we have about 885 independent hunting packs now operating in our City at this time. Our current loss of life due to this infestation is 13,275 people per month. I will now attempt to answer your questions."

"Please review for the Council," asked Mayor Babcock, "what measures your department and other elements of the city government have done to mitigate the problem."

"We have," Arnie responded, "followed all the steps on the recommendations of the federal government to deal with the problem. Those are: (1) to establish an 8:00 pm curfew for all non-essential employees; (2) advise all citizens to keep their children and pets inside whenever possible; (3) if necessary to be out after 8:00 pm to stay in lighted & populated areas; and (4) never walk in groups of three or less after dark."

"How effective have those measures been?" Asked one of the council members.

"We don't know for sure," Arnie replied, "but the number of fatalities I reported earlier were with those measures in place. I'm sure that the death count would have been much higher if those guidelines were not being followed. However, in a city of this size there was a fairly significant part of the population who didn't follow those rules. Also, the local merchants fought against the curfew and refused to shut down their shops, theaters, events, bars, and restaurants. That made it much more difficult for us to enforce the 8:00 pm curfew.

In addition to following those federal guidelines, we have attempted to trap and poison the demon cats in those areas of the city where the hunting packs are most active. However, these traditional methods for getting rid of feral cats didn't work at all. The reason is that both of those methods require bait to be effective. The demon cats are no longer attracted to the bait as they want the kill and the fresh human flesh it produces. The few cats we did trap or kill this way were people's pets who had been let out at night, but not yet joined the demon cat hunting packs and thought the meat used for bait was better than the dry kibble they got at home. We got some angry threats and lawsuits on those incidents. We have distributed printed notices as well as radio, television, and newspaper announcements that any cat not wearing a collar and the appropriate license would be immediately subjected to confinement and potential euthanization.

The local chapter of the NRA tried to get people to buy more guns and ammunition. The NRA said that everyone should have a firearm to protect themselves, but a rifle is useless for fending off a sudden attack by multiple cats, and even a pistol would be ineffective against twenty cats clinging to your face, body, arms, and legs. In fact several people who were armed with pistols ended up shooting themselves in an attempt to dislodge the cats. Remember these victims are surprised, panicked, and in pain. They are operating in the dark and have multiple targets clinging to their body. It is a much different scenario than someone target shooting at gun range or repelling an attack by a human aggressor.

Mace and stun guns also ended up causing more damage to the victim than to the cats. Our most effective method has been to send out animal control officers in groups after dark to known hunting ground areas armed with rifles and night vision goggles. We have brought down a number of cats that way. However, after the first shots are fired the pack disburses and we end up getting only a few cats. As I mentioned before, since we didn't catch the cats actively attacking someone on these raids, quite a few citizens have complained that we killed their pets and are now suing the city.

Various companies developed protective clothing, but the wearer ended up looking like an astronaut ready for a space walk. This protective equipment was very restrictive and extremely expensive. The most effective defensive method we have observed is for someone out on a walk after dark to have a large dog on a leash. While a twenty cat hunting pack of demon cats could probably subdue both the victim and their dog, they usually opt for the easiest and most vulnerable target, and will pass up the human with the dog for an easier kill."

"Excellent report Arnie," Mayor Babcock said, "now if there no more questions for Mr. Warren we will move on to our next agenda item, which is the zoning exception request from the Gooding Corporation."

## Chapter 21

#### 8:00 am Thursday - August 29, 2019 in the White House Situation Room, Washington D.C.

"Good morning Mr. President," Secretary Bennett began. "At last Monday's meeting you asked General Mason for the good news, and unfortunately there wasn't any. Today, however, I believe that we have some good news to report. The happy hackers from our cyber security division have been able to retrieve data from laptop computers we confiscated from the Nebraska demon cat breeding, training, and distribution facility. Although these computers were hastily smashed by the ISIS members before we overran their facility, it only damaged the screens and keyboards. Most of the hard disks were salvaged in tact. Working around the clock with our best experts and most powerful computers we were able to decode their records and now know the exact locations of the five other demon cat training and distribution facilities.

In addition to the one we liberated in Nebraska, we have located similar sites in Oregon, Arizona, Texas, Georgia, and New York. We are currently planning a very coordinated attack on all five sites at the same time. Although I'm sure that ISIS has beefed up their security at these sites after we took the one in Nebraska, they don't know we have discovered the location of the other sites. Hopefully we can take them by surprise and limit our casualties.

Since, we know these sites are heavily armed with assault weapons, we are planning to again use ATF agents supported by local national guard units for a joint operation. We will keep you up to date on the operation which will be monitored and controlled here in the situation room by myself, General Franklin, and Ralph Watson the ATF Bureau Chief. If you have the time and inclination you and your staff will be included in this real time operation.

"Yes," replied President Gray, "I want to be involved and watch the whole operation unfold. When you determine the time for the attack, let my Chief of Staff know so he can clear my schedule. Even if I am involved in a meeting I will excuse myself and come directly to the situation room so I can be involved. This catastrophe is priority one and takes prescience of over everything else."

Next to the podium was Raymond Floyd, the FEMA Director. "Since the demon cat disaster is certainly a federal emergency it would seem that we could be of more help than we have to date. The natural tragedies that we are normally involved with like fires, floods, tornadoes, or hurricanes pass through a region and then leave, giving those impacted a chance to recover and rebuild. However, the demon cat threat continues to persist and only get worse.

Also natural tragedies usually only impact one region at a time, allowing all those non-impacted regions to provide assistance and resources to the impacted area. The demon cat threat is now everywhere. So our stockpile of blankets, food supplies, potable water, and emergency medical supplies aren't of much use in this situation. We also specialize in setting up emergency shelters for citizens who's homes have been lost, or rendered uninhabitable, but that's not applicable in this case either."

"I certainly understand your position Ray," said the President. "We know that this situation is a very unique federal emergency that falls well beyond FEMA's capabilities, resources, and expertise." President Gray then turned to the Secretary of Homeland Security and said, "Don, please keep me informed about the assault plans against the ISIS demon cat breeding, training, and distribution centers. It has been comforting to finally get some good news on the demon cat catastrophe. I think that wraps things up for today."

With that the President and most of the other participants exited the situation room. Secretary Bennett, General Franklin, and ATF Bureau Chief Ralph Watson stayed behind to study the maps and reconnaissance photos provided of the five remaining ISIS demon cat training and distribution facilities to finalize their plan of action. 

## Chapter 22

#### 9:00 am Friday - 30 August, 2019 on the old US 80 highway, Gila Bend, Arizona

Four armored vehicles of ATF agents in full body armor were parked on a siding off old US highway 80, which ran due west from Gila Bend, Arizona. Once a bustling federal highway it had long since been replaced with Interstate 8, which like the old US 80 highway, ran due west from Gila Bend to San Diego, California. The old highway was now just another two lane rural road meandering through farms and a solar energy facility. The target in question was seven miles west of Gila Bend, approximately 200 yards south of the old highway accessible only by an innocent looking one lane unpaved access road from the old highway.

Carl Brighten, the leader of the ATF assault team checked his watch to make sure the operation would commence at exactly 0900 hours. The assault on the New York and Georgia targets would begin at 0600 eastern standard time and the assault on the Texas target would commence at 0700 central standard time. Assaults on the Arizona and Oregon targets would start at 0900 pacific standard time. Although Arizona was on mountain standard time, it didn't operate on daylight savings time. So both the Arizona and Oregon targets would be attacked at 0900 local time.

At exactly 0859 hours, the Arizona ATF team leader turned his four armored vehicles left off the old US 80 highway and headed south down the access road to the target farm. As they approached the target they were immediately hit with automatic fire from several AK-47 assault rifles manned by at least forty ISIS fighters. The ISIS defenders were located on both floors of the two story farm house, which was on the right side of the driveway, and in a smaller tractor & tool shed on the left side of the driveway. However, the majority of the defenders were lined up behind a five foot high east-west masonry wall on both sides of the access road entrance to the complex.

Since the only road into the complex was from the north, all the defensive positions were established to repel an attack from the access road. As a further impediment to the advancing ATF convoy the ISIS defenders had parked a large truck on the one lane access road at the point it entered the complex to block any vehicle advance from the access road. As soon as the four armored ATF vehicles took incoming fire, the ATF team leader halted his advance, but returned fire and kept the ISIS defenders focused on the frontal attack, as his orders had stipulated.

At 0815 hours two AH-64 Apache Assault Helicopters from the 285th Assault Helicopter Battalion of the Arizona Army National Guard had departed the Silverbell Army Heliport near Marana, Arizona on route to the target. Their flight path would be from the southeast and their ETA would be at at 0857 hours, so they used the last three minutes to fly due west insuring that their approach to the target would be from the south at exactly 0900 hours. This left the ISIS flank totally exposed to an attack from that direction. Captain Tom Wilson was the Apache group leader and directed the coordinated close air support attack. The second Apache helicopter was piloted by Chief Warrant Officer Bob Thornton.

Wilson fired two AGM-114 Hellfire air-to-surface missiles at the main house instantly turning it into a fireball. Simultaneously Thornton fired two Hellfire missiles, one destroying the tractor shed and the other removing the large truck that had been blocking the driveway. Both pilots had been instructed not to destroy the barn complex, as there were suspected prisoners there and General Franklin said that the government had plans for the building and the feral cats housed inside them.

Then the two Apache Assault Helicopters strafed the exposed ISIS fighters on the south side of the masonry wall with their 30mm M230 chain guns. At a combined rate of 21 rounds per second, a few short bursts was all that was needed to eliminate all the unprotected defenders behind the masonry fence. Even if the ISIS defenders would have had time to jump over the five foot masonry fence, they would have been sitting ducks for the heavily armed AFT assault team on the north side of the fence. The entire aerial attack all happened so fast and from an unexpected direction that none of the defenders could repel the dual pronged assault.

As soon as the truck blocking their advance had been removed, the AFT assault team advanced on the target complex. They immediately formed a defensive posture in case there were armed defenders inside the large barn, which the AFT assault team had been instructed to leave intack. Six unarmed ISIS fighters then came out of the large barn with their hands in the air and surrendered to the ATF assault team. The ATF team found and released thirty-six prisoners who were to be fed to the demon cat packs over the next couple days.

With the site secured, Chief Warrant Officer Thornton turned his Apache southeast and returned to the Silverbell complex. Captain Wilson hovered over the complex recording what was happening on the ground from the reconnaissance camera mounted on the underbelly of his Apache. Body cameras on the ATF agents were also recording what the ground team was experiencing during the mission.

Cheering erupted from the team watching the live feeds in the White House Situation Room, the most boisterous from President Mathew Gray. There were five video monitors showing the attacks on the Arizona, Oregon, Texas, Georgia, and New York targets. The Arizona complex was the first to be captured, but within fifteen minutes each of the other targets had been captured using similar techniques to the ones used on the Arizona target.

## Chapter 23

#### 8:30 pm Friday - 30 August, 2019 at the Army's Edgewood Chemical Biological Center, Aberdine, Maryland

Dr. Klaus Schneider was head of the special and top secret demon cat virology project at the Edgewood complex. Because of the urgency and secrecy of the project, a special wing and laboratory had been set up to solve the nation's demon cat melee. The project had been in operation since early June and operated twenty-four hours a day and seven days a week. Dr. Schneider had been given an unlimited budget for equipment and overtime for the virologists, veterinarians, and lab assistants assigned to the project.

Dr. Schneider would cover the eight o'clock in the morning to the eight o'clock in the evening shift and his assistant, Dr. Hans Becker, would cover the eight o'clock in the evening to eight o'clock in the morning shift. Both Schneider and Becker would stay for a half-hour overlap to brief their replacement on the progress made during the previous shift. Both teams were staffed with exceptionally qualified experts who all had a top secret security clearance.

The mission would be to develop a virus that would rapidly spread and totally eliminate the demon cats. The virus had to have at least a seven day incubation period where the infected cat would be contagious but not exhibit any symptoms or have any loss of function. After the onset of symptoms, the infected cat would die within eight hours.

However, the highly contagious and fatal virus had to be specific to cats and not harm humans or other domestic and wild animals. As a result an uninfected cat and several non-feline animals would be exposed to a host cat infected with the virus. If both the host cat and the non-infected cat showed symptoms and died, but none of the other animals did, then the project was complete to phase one. During the last series of tests, Dr. Schneider and Dr. Becker would handle the infected cats without protective equipment to make sure the virus was not harmful to humans.

Phase two would be to produce enough of the virus to infect two hundred and forty feral cats. Phase three would be to swiftly transport the infected cats to the six demon cat training facilities captured from ISIS and put one infected cat into each demon cat pen. After a three day exposure period, phase four would be to distribute the infected demon cats back into all the communities where a demon cat hunting pack had been reported. Phase five would be when the earliest infected cats in a hunting pack had died and the later infected cats would join another hunting pack and spread the infection to that pack.

The third condition was that the infection timelines and incubation timelines needed to be engineered to accommodate that sequence of events. Dr. Schneider told Dr. Becker that his shift had completed the third repetition of the latest test with positive results. Thus, after three months of trials, the successful virus, designated FV-17 was now ready to proceed to phase two. Dr. Becker indicated that the two hundred and forty demon cats needed for phase two had been brought to the lab and were ready to be processed.

As a backup to phase two, additional viles of the FV-17 virus would be produced and made available to the animal control officials in any jurisdiction who requested this virus. The first step of this process was for an animal control officer to bring down a demon cat who was already part of a hunting pack with a tranquilizing dart. The animal control officer would then inject the tranquilized demon cat with the FV-17 virus. When the demon cat regained consciousness, it would be released to rejoin its hunting pack and spread the virus to its pack mates.

## Chapter 24

#### 8:00 am Saturday - August 31, 2019 in the White House Situation Room, Washington D.C.

"Mr. President we have more good news for you," began a smiling Secretary of Homeland Security Don Bennett. "We have developed a successful virus that will be the beginning of the end for the demon cat menace. I would like to introduce you to Dr. Klaus Schneider who headed up the team from the Army's Edgewood Chemical Biological Center in Aberdine, Maryland. He is accompanied here today by his assistant Dr. Hans Becker. I will now turn the presentation over to Dr. Schneider who will explain the details of the project and the plans for implementing what they have code named "Project Teufelskatze."

"Good morning Mr. President," Dr. Schneider said with a heavy German accent, "Dr. Becker and I are honored to be a part of this momentous project and to be with you today. As you can see by the packet before you, the entire Project Teufelskatze is classified top secret and should not be divulged in whole or in part to anyone without the proper clearance and with a need to know. The reason is that if this information is divulged it might be met with significant resistance both legally and conceptually. If the project were to be delayed a year while its merits and methods were tied up in the courts or in the legislature, over three million more citizens would die."

At that point President Gray turned to Attorney General William Angstrom and said "Bill is there anything illegal about developing and releasing a virus that will only kill the demon cats."

"No sir," replied Angstrom, "this operation does not violate any existing law of which I am aware. What Dr. Schneider is referring to is potential legal challenges that could be filed in court with respect to being in violation of cat owner's rights or being designated as a cruel and inhumane way of treating a defenseless animal. Such lawsuits could result in 'cease and desist' orders pending the outcome of what could be extremely time consuming negotiations or litigation. While the Geneva convention prohibits the use of chemical and biological weapons in warfare, that only applies to humans and military service animals. If there was a probation against pesticides we couldn't even spray our crops or put rat poison under our houses."

Dr. Schneider then continued with his presentation explaining how the FV-17 virus was developed and tested. He also explained the phases of the operation and the timelines involved. He indicated that he would be in charge of the remaining phases at the New York, Georgia, and Nebraska demon cat breeding, training, and distribution facilities. Dr. Becker would be in charge of the remaining phases at the Oregon, Arizona, and Texas facilities. He also explained that Secretary Bennett had assured him that qualified people with top secret security clearances would be provided to carry out the operations in the six demon cat breeding, training, and distribution centers along with the vehicles and drivers necessary to distribute the infected cats. He then asked if he and Dr. Becker had the Presidents approval to proceed.

"Yes, definitely," Gray said with vigor, "proceed on with the remaining phases of Project Teufelskatze as quickly as possible. Every day without a solution costs us thousands of American lives. I would like to personally thank you Dr. Schneider as well as Dr. Becker and your entire team for your tireless efforts, dedication, and tenacity. Your team has developed this VF-17 virus and implementation procedure in a very short time. I also understand that you and Dr. Becker exposed yourselves to the VF-17 infected cats to make sure that it was not harmful to humans. That was a very brave and selfless thing to do.

The entire Project Teufelskatze team has provided a great service to this country for which you will never be able to be properly recognized. Your efforts will save millions of American citizens, who will also never know your efforts literally saved them from 'the jaws of death.' However, you have the gratitude of everyone in this room and may someday in the future be fully recognized for your contributions. I believe that we can all sleep a little better tonight."

With that the President shook the hands of Dr. Schneider, Dr. Becker, Secretary Bennett, General Franklin, and ATF Bureau Chief Ralph Watson. Then President Gray smiled, gave the victory sign with his right hand, turned and departed the situation room.

## Chapter 25

#### 6:00 am Sunday - September 1, 2019 at the Arizona Demon Cat Breeding, Training, and Distribution Facility, Gila Bend, Arizona

Carl Brighten, the ATF team leader who had captured the Arizona demon cat breeding, training, and distribution Facility from ISIS two days before had remained there with his team to keep the facility secured. Local citizens and the press had been told that the facility was an ISIS bomb making facility and that it had been cordoned off so that dangerous materials could be removed and that the entire site was in the process of being decontaminated. It was in the interest of public safety that the facility was off limits to all civilian personnel.

The bodies of the dead ISIS terrorists killed in the Friday battle with the ATF agents would be fed to the demon cats so they would not starve before they could be infected and released. What was left of their bodies would be buried in the pits that these ISIS jihadists had dug and filled with the remains of the innocent American infidels they fed alive to the demon cats. The ISIS defenders killed in the firefight with the ATF and Arizona ARNG still came out ahead of their victims since they were killed instantly in battle and didn't have to endure being eaten alive by twenty-five hungry demon cats. At least Carl Brighten didn't feed the six surviving ISIS captives to the demon cats, although he had threatened that possibility to them in order to extract information during their interrogation.

This probably violated the dead ISIS defenders' religious aspirations, but they didn't deserve to get twenty-one virgins in heaven after what they they had done. They'd been the ones feeding their innocent victims alive to the demon cats. They also participated in an endeavor that cost countless innocent victims their lives throughout the southwest region of the United States for several months. Feeding the dead ISIS casualties to the soon to be infected demon cats would keep them from starving and keep their appetite for human flesh. That way they would blend in with the healthy demon cats when they were released at designated sites in southern California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico.

The eighty infected cats from the Edgewood laboratory had arrived on schedule and, as directed by Dr. Becker, had been distributed into the pens of demon cats already in those pens. After three days of exposure the cats would be loaded into cages to be transported to, and released in, those communities which had a demon cat infestation. It was an exact reversal of what the ISIS operation had been doing for almost three months. However, now the objective was to save human lives not to take them.

## Chapter 26

#### 8:00 am Monday - September 30, 2019 in the White House Situation Room, Washington D.C.

During the month of September the early morning demon cat briefings had been conducted weekly instead of daily. The infestation map had been reversed and as time had progressed more and more states had started turning first yellow and then white. The white indicated that state had no reported demon cat attacks and the yellow indicated that the rate had been cut in half. Now the map didn't show a single red or yellow state. All the states had turned white. As soon as the virus appeared, cat owners were warned to keep their cats inside at all times and to never introduce a new cat into the home until the virus had run its course.

Because the magnitude of dead cats and their rotting carcases become somewhat of a health problem, some residents started wearing face masks to diminish the smell. It was still far superior to the situation that existed when the demon cats were alive. The public health officials who had to remove the dead cats far preferred that to removing the dead and ravaged bodies of the demon cat's human victims. A month after Project Teufelskatze had been implemented things had returned back to the normal that had existed in March of 2019 before anyone had ever heard of or imagined a demon cat.

While the public at large had been elated that the demon cat catastrophe was over, there had been questions about where the virus had come from and how it had spread so quickly throughout the nation. To quell those inquiries, Dr. Schneider and Dr. Becker authored a joint scholarly paper which explained that cats had not previously been susceptible to the virus because of a strong immune system. However, a protein imbalance in the cellular composition of the cat's immune system caused by a prolonged diet of human flesh made the cats susceptible to the virus carried by asymptomatic host animals the cats commonly came in contact with.

This article appeared in the professional journals of virology and veterinary science. Excerpts and summaries of the study also appeared in local newspapers and national magazines. Television and radio broadcasts covered this explanation as did information distributed over the internet. This explanation quelled complaints of cat owners who otherwise might have thought their beloved pets died innocently. Based on the explanation given in the study, if their cat had not eaten human flesh they would not have contracted the virus. This explanation was further reinforced since those domestic cats people had kept inside of their homes didn't contract the virus and die.

So the public never knew what ISIS had done to exacerbate the problem or what their government had done to quell it. And they probably never would. All that they knew is the demon cat problem came and went leaving them with a CATaclysmic CATastrophe that had lasted for six months, claimed 624,716 lives, would never be forgotten, and had impacted everybody in some way or another.

## Chapter 27

#### 3:30 pm Friday - October 4, 2019 at 2462 Jackson Street, Apartment 12B, Kremmit, California

Barbara Johnson kicked her shoes off, poured herself a glass of wine, and flopped down on the couch. This had been a rough day since she had started her shift at six-thirty that morning. Actually her whole life had been rough. During her sophomore year in high school Barbara's older brother had been killed in Viet Nam. A year later her father had died of cancer. Then shortly after she graduated from high school, Barbara had a terrible argument with her mother and basically had to decide between maintaining a relationship with her mother or a cool guy she fell in love with and ended up marrying.

She and her new husband, Brian Sullivan, left Waloma and moved to a small town in Kansas. She worked as a waitress to support Brian who stayed home all day creating art nobody wanted to buy. Barbara had divorced Brian after only eight months of marriage. He had been extremely abusive which caused Barbara to start drinking to be able to put up with the abuse. When the situation had become too difficult to cope with, she divorced him and took out a restraining order to make sure she would not be accosted again.

This was something she hoped her mother would never find out about, because Abigail Johnson had tried to warn Barbara against getting involved with the jerk in the first place. Barbara knew she had made a big mistake and didn't want to hear her mother say "I told you so!" At least this marriage had not produced any children to worry about.

After the divorce Barbara moved from Kansas to southern California. She became a waitress at a truck stop along Interstate 10 and got herself a cheap apartment and a used Chevy Cameo. After a few months she met a truck driver named Carl Vinton that thought she was **"the cat's meow."** After a short courtship they were married and settled down in Riverside, California. They had a modest house and after a little over a year they had a son named Curtis. Curtis was a always a problem child and as he got older the problem became even worse. When Curtis became a teenager he went from rebellious to dishonest, vengeful, and malicious.

Curtis dropped out of high school because he didn't like the teachers, thought the stuff they were teaching was useless crap, and wanted to join a rock band even though he really had no musical talents. He also started using drugs because all the cool rock stars and groupies used them. However, to buy the drugs he had to steal money from his mother's grocery stash or forge her name on checks. He also used these sources of revenue to fund his body piercing and elaborate tattoos. However, he saved a ton of money on haircuts and razor blades.

On one occasion after Curtis had easily guessed that Barbara's pin number for her credit card was their four digit house number, he took the credit card from her purse while she was working in her garden to make a large cash withdrawal from the automated window at the bank. When this cash withdrawal showed up at the end of the month, Carl blamed Barbara for not being more careful with her credit card and pin number. Carl always sided with his son Curtis which exacerbated Barbara's attempts to discipline or even earn the respect of her son.

One night Curtis stomped out of the house, got high on meth, and crashed his speeding motorcycle into a pick-up truck. He died before the aid car even got him to the hospital. Since the tantrum and fatal accident happened while Carl was out of state on a long haul run, he blamed Barbara for the incident. From that point on their marriage became even more dysfunctional than it had been before.

When Carl wasn't on the road, he spent most of his time watching sports by himself on the large screen television in his basement man cave or out drinking with his buddies. They each made their own meals and didn't interact much with each other. She suspected Carl was having one or more affairs that extended his time on the road more each year. She became depressed and started drinking heavily again.

After thirty-nine years of marriage, and a decreasing level of affection, she finally divorced Carl Vinton and petitioned the court to return her maiden name. She was once again Barbara Johnson. After the divorce, Barbara spent most of her divorce settlement to pay for the two month long alcohol rehabilitation treatment she had to go through before she could get a job and live on her own. The treatment cured her addiction to vodka, but she still enjoyed an occasional glass of wine.

After Barbara was released from the rehab facility she moved to Kremmit, California which had a large retirement community and where the cost of living was much cheaper than it had been in Riverside. She was then fifty-nine years old, unemployed, and had only a small amount of her divorce settlement money left over to support herself. Fortunately she was able to get a job at the local post office sorting mail. Although the work was hard it didn't pay much and just barely covered the rent on her Jackson Street apartment, utilities, groceries, and clothing from the local Goodwill outlet.

She couldn't afford a car but she had purchased a dilapidated old golf cart to get back and forth to her job at the post office and to the store for groceries and medicine. One nice thing about Kremmit was that they let the old folks drive their golf carts on all the city streets. Over the last couple of years, Barbara had developed a bad case of rheumatism in her right hip that made it difficult, for her to walk, climb stairs, and continue with her job at the post office.

It was fortunate for Barbara that she had taken back her maiden name. The previous week she had received a phone call from a lady who worked for the probate court in Waloma, Michigan. For the last few months they had been trying to locate her. Because "Barbara Johnson" was such a common name, they had run into a lot of dead ends before they found her. She was informed that her mother had died intestate because she didn't have a will.

Since Barbara was the only living relative, Michigan law dictated that Barbara was entitled to her mother's estate. The estate amounted to a $22,000 savings account and the old house on 13th street that her mother owned free and clear. When Barbara inquired about how her mother had died, the probate court clerk indicated that the cause of death on the death certificate indicated that she had broken her back in an accidental fall. Because Barbara had not been in contact with her mother or anyone else in Waloma she didn't know about the cats that had ravaged Abigail's body and started the whole demon cat catastrophe.

Barbara had contacted a real estate agent in Waloma and was informed that because of the number of vacant homes on the market in Waloma, combined with the location, condition, and age of the home, the 1611 N. 13th Street property was probably worth less than $25,000. Barbara, who was now sixty-three years old, knew that her worsening rheumatism would make it almost impossible to continue on at the post office and climb the two flights of stairs to her third floor apartment.

However, a year earlier she had qualified for social security. Without her post office earnings and with the distinct possibility that the rent on her apartment would undoubtedly go up again at the end of the current lease, Barbara decided her only alternative was to move back to Waloma and live rent free in her mother's old house.

## Chapter 28

#### 10:00 am Monday - October 14, 2019 at the Greyhound Bus Terminal, Waloma, Michigan

Barbara Johnson noticed the chill of the fall air in Michigan as she climbed down the steps from the Greyhound bus at the Waloma bus terminal. Barbara was stiff and sore from sleeping on the bus the last leg of her journey, but she was glad to finally be here after several days on several buses. Barbara retrieved her single suitcase from the pile of luggage the driver had removed from the bus cargo bay and hailed a cab to take her to the old house on 13th street.

When Barbara divorced Carl Vinton and gone to the rehab facility she had taken just a suitcase of clothes, toiletries, and a few pieces of costume jewelry. After she completed her two month rehabilitation, Barbara had no desire to go back to the house in Riverside, where Carl and his new live-in girlfriend resided, to get anything. Carl could keep the junk and the memories. When Barbara left her apartment in Kremmit, California to come to Michigan she again only took the single suitcase. She had rented her apartment in Kremmit fully furnished so there was really nothing to take with her anyway. Besides her mother's house in Waloma was still fully furnished.

As Barbara got out of the cab on 13th street, she noticed that the house she had grown up in looked much smaller than she remembered and now had peeling paint and a sagging porch. However, the Waloma police had the house professionally cleaned after they had finished processing it as a crime scene. The house had been vacant for six months so while the air was a little stale the house seemed clean and neat. What Barbara didn't like were the steps she would have to traverse either to the front porch or the back porch. She was now using a cane to take the pressure off her right hip which was getting worse. The cool Michigan temperature seemed to make it ache even more than it had in Kremmit.

So like her mother had done, Barbara arranged to have her medications and groceries delivered to her house. She hadn't had a car or even a driver's license for years and didn't think she could afford to get one now that her only income was her monthly social security check. Barbara filled out the paperwork necessary to have the county give her a low income senior rate on both her taxes and utilities. Like Abigail she would use the Waloma senior transport service to get back and forth to the doctor's office.

Barbara also resurrected her mother's back yard garden to grow vegetables and supplement her grocery orders. When Barbara combined her own savings of $3,000 with the $22,000 she had inherited from her mother, she thought it was an adequate nest egg for a person of her age. It would also cover her minimal medical expenses until she could go on medicare at age sixty-five.

Although Barbara had lived in Waloma as a child and had graduated from high school there, all of her childhood friends and classmates had done as she had done and left Waloma for greener pastures. However, Barbara was the only one that returned. The houses on both sides of her mother's old house were still vacant. So like Abigail, Barbara had no friends, neighbors, or relatives. She was used to living on her own but since she was now a shut-in, she started to feel a little lonely.

One morning as she was drinking her coffee she browsed through the Waloma Shopping News which showed up on her front porch every week. She noticed that a farmer just a few miles out of town had advertised kittens free to a good home. Barbara took a taxi out to the farm so she could pick up a kitten she hoped would give her something to love and something that would love her back. It would also give her someone to talk to and snuggle up with on the couch while she was watching her mother's old television in the evenings.

There were six kittens in the litter and all were so cute she didn't know which one she should adopt. There were two males and four females. The kittens were all weened and Barbara was the only person to respond to the ad. "Pick the one you want lady," the farmer said "I don't have a need for any more cats so the rest of them are going to the bottom of the lake." Since Barbara thought they were all so cute and couldn't bare the thought of any of them being drowned, she decided to take all six. After all, she had found several feeding dishes, cat beds, and litter boxes in her mother's spare bedroom.

After two weeks she knew that she had made the right decision. She loved her cats and they filled a void she had felt for several years. They loved her and that was something that had never lasted very long from either of her two husbands or her rebellious son. By the time Barbara turned sixty-five, a couple of her un-neutered females had produced eight kittens. These eight new cats plus a couple of strays that she had taken in brought her feline family up to sixteen.

Even though her sixteen cats cost Barbara a significant portion of her limited income for their dry kibble cat food and cat box litter, they brought her so much joy it was worth it. For the first time in her life she felt complete and content. Everything was perfect. What could possibly go wrong?

# Epilogue

The believable catastrophes depicted in books and movies are usually brought about by some rational convergence of contributing factors. For weather related disasters it might be an unusual confluence of high and low pressure zones that bring about an untenable flood, hurricane, or tornado. In the case of a catastrophic earthquake, tsunami, or volcanic eruption it might be the violent shifting of plates along a fault line or abnormal pressure under a dormant volcano that triggers a violent pyroclastic event.

For a raging fire it could be the combination of dry vegetation, high winds, and an unattended campfire. It could also be the threatening trajectory of a large asteroid as it zooms toward our planet. However, many of these situations are common enough that we have taken precautions to minimize the impact of the catastrophe by planning, warnings, shelters, and well organized responses. In some cases these contributing factors happen at a particular time of the year so we have a fire season or a hurricane season, where we anticipate and prepare for these events even before they happen.

Like the catastrophes referenced above, the CATaclysmic CATastrophe chronicled in this book is brought about by a complex series of contributing factors that all need to be in place for the events to logically take place. A great many older folks live alone and have handicaps or physical limitations that prevent them from getting out of the house on their own. Also many elderly people find comfort in having several cats around to keep them company. However, most of the time these folks have children, grandchildren, siblings, friends, or neighbors that keep in touch with them and make sure that they are alright.

Even when these elderly folks die at home, they are usually discovered within a few days by a visiting neighbor, an inquiring relative, a friend, or a paid care giver stopping by to take them shopping, to church, a social event, or to a doctor appointment. For those not able to leave the house it may be a family member or a hospice nurse. A growing number of elderly people living by themselves now have a fall alert device around their neck that can detect a fall and notify the local paramedics. Under normal circumstances neighbors would notice the neglected yard or mail piling up on the porch and check to see what was wrong.

None of these preventative measures were in place for Abigail Johnson. However, given her particular location and circumstances, we can see how the events igniting this catastrophe could easily come about. We can also see how a completely different sequence of events quite logically put her daughter, Barbara Johnson, in basically the same situation. And since this catastrophe had not been encountered before, we as a society had no readily available plan of action. We were also at a loss to deal with the catastrophe using any of our traditional organizations, methods, and tools.

We all know of towns and neighborhoods across the nation that fit the declining state of affairs seen in Waloma and Bentaloo. Could your town be the next Waloma? Could the elderly stay at home widow living across the tracks in your town be the next Abigail Johnson? Could the cute kitty in your lap be incited to join a man-eating hunting pack of demon cats? When you look into the aloof, yet seemingly focused, eyes of a cat and wonder what is going on behind that intense soul piercing gaze, give those possibilities some thought.

In this story the ignition of the catastrophe took place by accident and relied on a perfect storm of contributing factors. A more horrifying thought would be that a foreign power or terrorist group might engineer a CATaclysmic CATastrophe from the start by building demon cat breeding, training, and distribution centers like the ones described in this book. It would be an ideal way to eliminate one percent of your adversary's population every year and bring more terror than any of the more conventional terrorist threats they have used in the past. A side benefit for the terrorists would be the divisive conditions brought about by pitting the individuals, groups, and communities of their adversary against each other.

Weaponization of our own cats to bring about the loss of life and terror to our society would take a very sinister, heinous, and unscrupulous organization. However, we know of several terrorist groups that might fall into this category, especially if it could be done with impunity. This would make the CATaclysmic CATastrophe described in this book an even more plausible, burgeoning, and devastating possibility.

# Books by Terry Eade

Fiction

Dave's Adventures in the Afterlife

A CATaclysmic CATastrophe

Social Commentary

Random Rants for Rational Reflection

The Frightening Fruition of Frumpism

Management

The Last Minute Manager

Coalescent Management of Diverse Operations

Miscellaneous

Faultless Fuel

The Glories of Geezerhood

Finance Series

Basic Nercology

Basic Sarcology

Eade's Law's of Budgeting

Poker Series

Pokerish: The Language and Logic of Poker

More Pokerish: Poker Skills and Insights

Terry's Joke Collection Series

Volume I - Animal to Bar Jokes

Volume II - Barber to Domestic Staff Jokes

Volume III - Drugstore to Genie Jokes

Volume IV - Golfing to Kid Jokes

Volume V - Lawyer to Medical Jokes

Volume VI - Military to Newlywed Jokes

Volume VII - Nurse to Redneck Jokes

Volume VIII - Religion to Senior Citizen Jokes

Volume IX - Sports to Train Jokes
