Deathcat

A CAT. A LIST. A HAMSTER WITH A BRIEFCASE.

In the sleepy Cotswold village of Nether Wallop-on-the-Wold, there is a cat on the wall.

He is ginger. He is grey. He has a notch in his left ear, and he has attended every funeral in the parish since 1962, always at the back, always leaving a fraction before the committal, like a man avoiding the bill. The villagers call him a stray. The coroner calls it natural causes. The cat calls it business.

Because DEATHCAT knows when you are going to die. He knows three days in advance. And he knows because he is the one doing it.

Now the Office wants its books balanced, Hallowe'en is coming, and the count stands at eighty-one. The Women's Institute are holding the line with a Victoria sponge and a ceremonial ladle. The vicar has asked the cat a question, and the cat's answer has been examined by an Egyptologist, who called it "the saddest thing I have ever seen". A little girl named Poppy has noticed that the cat looks lonely. And a hamster named Mr. Whiskers is carrying a tiny briefcase and taking notes.

Based on a real cat. (The author wishes it noted that the cat knows.)

DEATHCAT is Book Four of The Emerick Codex of Forbidden Terror, the work of Lee Emerick, the world's greatest horror author, a man who has stared into the abyss and asked it to repeat itself. Funny, furious and unexpectedly tender, it is a village horror-comedy about death, loneliness and who sits with you at the end.

Please be careful. It is warm.