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She’d clasped a hand to her chest, which was heaving, her heart beating a mile a minute.

“You’re all right now, Pamela,” rumbled the Chief. “You’re perfectly safe with me.”

They were both still staring at the corner, but of her assailant there was no trace.

“I swear he was right behind me, Chief,” said Pamela, starting to feel a little silly now. It’s one thing to be chased by a monster, but another for that monster to suddenly get cold feet the moment the constabulary arrives. She secretly wished now her assailant would show his ugly face so the Chief could see for himself she wasn’t making this up.

“Let’s take a look,” said the Chief now. She saw that his right hand was on his weapon, and as she stayed safely behind the man’s broad back, she followed as he approached the corner of the park, then cautiously glanced around it.

“And?” she asked, her voice strained. “Is he still there?”

“Weirdest thing,” grumbled the Chief.

She ventured from behind the safety of the police officer, and took a look for herself. To her surprise, the man was gone.

“Oh,” she said, and even Boomer seemed surprised, for he suddenly stopped yapping.

She was growing a little hot under her collar when the Chief directed a curious look at her, the kind of look a doctor would award a patient just before calling the loony bin.

“He was there, Chief, I swear,” she said.

“Oh, I believe you, Pamela. I do.” But it was obvious from his demeanor that he didn’t. “So can you describe this man to me?”

She nodded.“This is going to sound a little strange, Chief, but the man looked like…” She sank her teeth into her lower lip.

“Yes?” he prompted. “He looked like what?”

“Well, he looked like a—like a zombie.”

Chapter 1

Look, I realize that I’m one of the lucky ones. My human treats me well, my food bowl is almost always filled to the rim—except when Vena the veterinarian convinces Odelia that I have to go on a diet—and I have friends in high places. I’m referring to Dooley, who had opted to lie on top of the couch’s back forsome reason. I guess he likes his heights.

But some days even I experience this strange pang of unhappiness. That nebulous feeling that something is lacking and you simply can’t put your paw on it.

Today was one of those days. It wasn’t that my bowl was empty—when it is, I make sure to wake up my human by kneading her arm and mewling into her ear until she wakes up and rectifies her mistake. It was that, what was in my bowl suddenly failed to grip.

And I blame it on that TV commercial we’d been watching for the third day in a row.

Lately my friends and I have developed the habit of watching television in the early morning, long before Odelia and Chase are up.

Odelia leaves the remote lying on the coffee table, and we’d discovered—or I should probably say Dooley has discovered, quite by accident by landing his tush on top of the remote one morning—that one click on the big red button on the remote switches on the television, and a couple of clicks will take us to one of many shopping networks, which feature, every morning between five and six, a lot of commercials for pet food.

One of those commercials had attracted our attention, and we were watching it again now, all four of us on the couch.

“The revolution in pet food continues,” a very beautiful young woman dressed, for some reason, in a white lab coat, was saying, smiling a perfect toothpaste smile.

“Pet food revolution,” Dooley muttered reverently, as if trying to memorize the line.

“Peppard Nutrition Revolution brings you the latest scientific research and the highest quality pet food on the market. And the best part? It’s free! Sign your pet up for our free testing program and enjoy all the benefits of Peppard Pet Food free of charge.”

“She said free three times,” said Dooley happily. “Which must mean something.”

“I guess it means the food is free,” said Harriet. She was smacking her lips at the sight of a gourmet dinner being presented now on the screen. Even though the woman with the lab coat always spoke of pets and pet food, the animals on the screen were all cats.

“Lucky cats,” said Brutus as he shook his head. “What do they have that we don’t?”

“Access to a good manager who got them into this commercial?” I said.

“We should be in there,” said Brutus. “We should be the ones tasting that godly food.”

“We could always ask Odelia to sign us up,” I said. “I’m sure if she does we’d be selected.”

“And why is that, Max?” asked Dooley, speaking from his high perch.

“Because Odelia is a famous reporter,” I said. “And I’m sure these Peppard Pet Food people would love an article about their products in theGazette, something which she could give them in exchange for our participation in this revolutionary new program.”

“And I’m sure it doesn’t work like that,” said Harriet. “You probably have to know someone to get into the program.”