Cat Scratch Fever

Introduction

The above picture was shared in the "True Crime, Horror Story & Dark Poetry" Facebook group and a challenge was issued to write a horror story based on this.

The title of this coincides with a Ted Nugent song but there is only one song that I will countenance by that right-wing moron who once said "If It's Too Loud, You're Too Old" and then proceeded to wear earplugs.

The music is "Zombie" by the wonderful CW Stoneking who, unbelievably is Australian though you would think he hails from the American Deep South.

Cat Scratch Fever

I am overweight and old. No one talks to me. People avoid me. My neighbours never reply if I say hello. I am unfit but hate the place I live so I walk out during the day, but I have to sit down on every bench that I walked past.

Sometimes I sit on people's garden walls, but if they see me they tell me to move on or else they will call the police. So I spend the day wandering until it goes dark then I go back to my place to sleep. I don't have any power and I forget the last time I got new sheets or even took my stuff to the laundrette. There's only me there so it doesn't matter, but even I know my place is horrible and it stinks to high heaven. When no one likes you there is no reason to take care of yourself.

I've never had a job, and there is no way I can get one. My place is actually a squat so every time I go back I expect it to be boarded up or demolished.

The only company I have is that sometimes when I'm out the neighbourhood cats come up to me and examine me. Today one came up and started playing. It grabbed me and bit me so I pushed it away and then started walking off. It really hurt and drew blood. I found some cloth in a hedge and that seemed to staunch it.

I kept walking and walking. The roads were familiar but they were never ending. People shunned me. I checked the bins for half-eaten burgers or sandwiches which I found and devoured, but I still needed to eat, I needed something, anything.

I was wondering if that cat had infected me with something.

There was a dead pigeon on the pavement which I grabbed and ate but it was cold and horrible, and half an hour I threw up, but was so hungry that I ate it again.

I needed something hot and alive, something or someone. I was getting hungrier and was now eyeing the people I was passing, they were tempting me, and their bodies were looking like a meal.

I found one down a back alley, homeless I think, but alive. I smashed its head in with a stone and started to eat the brains, blood and scum dripping from my mouth and hands.

What was happening to me?

There was broken glass on the floor and I saw my reflection, a red-eyed blood-soaked murderous ghoul feasting on its victim. All that mattered is that I could feed off anything that I could kill and eat.

There was a sudden shout.

"Stop you fucking bastard, Stop!!"

Needless to say, I didn't stop, I just kept eating the brains and gorging myself.

There was a shot that hit me in the skull, and then everything went black.

The Police

Police Person 1: "That's another one, this is an epidemic, a plague"

Police Person 2: "What are they?"

Police Person 1: "Seriously have you not heard, have you not been watching the news?"

Police Person 2: "No, what are they, tell me"

Police Person 1: " Zombies, we got a plague of zombies"