By Frampton Jones

Heike Harding will be well known to anyone who has spent time around the docks of Hopeless Maine. She has fed the feral cats there for many years, and taken in cats rescued from shipwrecks. Anyone wanting a regular cat who can prevent small, antisocial entities from infesting home or workplace, will have appreciated her good work.

It is a mystery then, why this well-liked islander has suffered a sudden and violent death.

Doc Willoughby told me: “She most likely had a little turn and fell in the water. No one lasts long in that water.” When I asked him about the shocking neck wound, he said, “Sea monsters, I expect. They come right into the dock you know, especially at night after the pub has closed.”

A number of citizens who wished to remain anonymous expressed to me their opinions that someone from our unnatural community is to blame. Several anonymous vampires have told me that it was far too violent to be a vampire bite, and looked far more like the sort of thing a were-person would do.  One gentleman self-identifying as a werewolf told me that a werewolf just wouldn’t waste food like that and it must have been a vampire.

On the day after her death, all of Heike’s cats made a slow and solemn march from the docks, to the Hopeless Home for Uncanny Cats. I feel they know something we do not.

Since the recent deaths of Crysta, and Erekiel, The Hopeless Home for Uncanny Cats has been an unsafe place for human visitors. The cats are angry. Cats have congregated from across the island as far as I can tell. I had no idea we had so many dustcats and shadowcats.

I advise extreme caution, if you own a cat, are owned by a cat, see a cat, or find someone breaking into your home after dark.