Screaming, she hammered on my door at midnight. I’d leapt out of bed as soon as I’d heard the awful metallic crash outside my house.

“Monster devil claws… Gary’s dead,” she blurted.

In the moon’s pitiless glare, the gruesome scene was appalling. The car, jammed brokenly against a lamp post, held her boyfriend’s mutilated body in death’s embrace. Half his face was ripped raw. He was wedged within the shattered windscreen, life-blood gushing from deep lacerations that scored his throat and chest. Huge pawprints tracked crimson across the car’s crumpled hood.

With a lurch of recognition, I saw the vehicle was the same one that had sped off after running over my Siamese cat a few days ago. My beloved companion’s life had ended in contorted agony.

As we waited for the ambulance and the police, I asked Gary’s girlfriend to describe the monster.

“It looked like a Bengal Tiger! It came through the windscreen and attacked Gary. It shredded him!”  

The next morning, after sleeping fitfully – my head full of grotesque images – I saw that the fresh earth of my cat’s grave had burst open. The deep hole was empty, except for an oozing human eyeball.