The Black Heart Crypt

Zipper didn’t like this.

It was bad. Very, very, very bad.

Three cats in the yard. His yard.

A dog’s backyard was his castle.

But now three cats were out on the deck, purring and stretching and sticking their fannies up in the air like they owned the place. Soon they’d be prancing down the steps to poop in the shrubs and pee under the trees. They would make Zipper’s castle smell cat nasty.

This was a cat-tastrophe.

One of the cats, Mister Cookiepants, a tabby who was sort of tubby, had already stolen several pieces of kibble from Zipper’s food bowl.

Another, Pyewacket, swung around and swatted him on the snout when she didn’t like the way Zipper sniffed her heinie.

The third one, Mystic, the black cat, had hissed at Zipper when he tried to steal her floppy fish toy. Mystic was bad luck and bad news.

Zipper usually liked cats. But usually, they lived somewhere else and peed and pooped in a box or some other dog’s backyard.

He wondered if Pyewacket, Mister Cookiepants, and Mystic were moving in.

Would there be crystal dinner bowls filled with globs of fishy gunk?

Would he start coughing up hair balls?

Would they make him join in the chorus when they started howling at the moon?

Zipper sighed and sulked and sank his head between his paws.

He needed a plan.

Well, first he needed a nap.

He yawned and stretched and drifted off into the most wonderful dream.

It was marvelous. Better than a bacon cheeseburger wrapped in ham and served on a meat loaf bun.

Zipper was chasing hundreds of cats up trees and telephone poles.

And not a single one of them ever came back down!