Cats Vs Zombies

Title: Cats Vs Zombies
Author: Claire Watson
Fandom: Teen Wolf
Pairing: Stiles/Derek
Rating: PG
Characters: Stiles, Derek, Cats, Zombies, Others
Warnings: People being turned into zombies, zombies being destroyed.
Word Count: 5,750
Author Note: Goes AU after the whole Nogisune thing. Stiles and Noah left BH, and Derek never came back either. This story is set five or so years from then.
Thank you to Ed Ronhia for her extremely short-notice beta and alpha. She’s a master comma-wrangler!
This story is dedicated to Saydria Wolfe and her cat. Hope you feel better soon!

 

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November 2019, Minnesota

The zombie outbreak that everyone had been predicting finally happened in 2019.

Or at least, it sort-of happened. To the world in general, reports of zombies had been largely dismissed as an extremely elaborate hoax, an April Fool’s joke that went too far.

Stiles knew differently. He sometimes wondered if knowing shit like this was some sort of karmic retribution for his somewhat sketchy morals when it came to online privacy. It’s not like he went trawling through random individuals private accounts, okay? Not unless he already suspected them of being involved in dastardly deeds, anyway.

“Mrwow,” Bitcher said from her perch on the back of his chair. Until she’d joined their little family, Stiles had no idea a cat could put so much nuance into two syllables. She liked to supervise his info-diving. In fact, she liked to supervise most aspects of his life, often with running commentary. Even when she was asleep, it was either in the same room as him or—if Stiles had purposely shut her out—the next room over.

Stiles allowed it, for the most part. His only two holdouts were when he was communing with a higher power on the toilet and when he and Derek were getting busy in the bedroom. Neither of those activities needed a feline spectator, no matter what she thought.

“If you were a true witch’s companion, you’d be more help to me when I was trying to hack Entosly,” Stiles said conversationally.

“MMMMMRRROOOOWW!” Bitcher insisted.

Stiles sighed. He set the final search parameter, checked his code for any obvious errors and then started the compilation process. “Come on then.” He rose to his feet, lifting his arms above his head to stretch out his back and sighing in pleasure. “Let’s get you fed before you decide to start snacking on my ears.” He picked Bitcher up and held her close to his chest, enjoying the way she rubbed her face across his chin affectionately.

The zombie outbreak had occurred during April, in Jasper, Arizona, and contrary to all available mathematical modelling, had been halted before it could get outside the town. Despite several independently lead investigations no-one knew why.

There were theories, of course, mostly centring around the dispersal patterns of the slime that the bodies had exploded into. CCTV might have been useful if it hadn’t been tampered with. Turned out that the recording function had been disabled. The real-time footage was fine, and the individual systems all showed nothing wrong.

The tampering had been traced back to Entosly, a research facility located in the abandoned copper mine the town was built around. A highly secretive division of the FBI had taken over the investigation shortly after the first alert was sent out, and Stiles’ skills weren’t up to hacking that level of security. Not without being caught, anyway.

It was pure luck that had led to Stiles finding a series of unsecured files on one of the —lately deceased—Entosly managers personals servers. He took copies and had spent a great deal of his spare time in the last few months trying to wring some information from them. Unfortunately, there were at least two layers of encryption to get through, and while Stiles wasn’t exactly a slouch with a computer, he wasn’t in Danny’s league either.

In the absence of CCTV, the only footage available was from the phones of people that were never found again. They were all pretty similar, showing a shambling zombie—or in some cases, zombies—approaching. The phone holders tended to either be excited for the ‘trick,’ or annoyed at the ‘foolishness,’ with one narrator informing the zombie lurching towards her that enough was enough and that he was in big trouble this time. Everything went shaky and the phone was dropped face-down on the ground, recording nothing but darkness and sound until the battery went dead.

That was it.

Stiles hated not knowing the reason for things and was determined to find out.

v^v^v^v

April 2019, Arizona

Ash stared out of the window, ears twitching irritably. Her human servant had gone down to the edge of the territory to check the white box for the square white papers that he always got excited about and hadn’t returned yet. That was far too long ago and Ash was getting fed up. It was dinner time, and this tardiness was unacceptable.

Making up her mind that forgetful servants needed to be taught a lesson, Ash dropped down from her perch, made her way out her personal entrance and stalked towards the gate.

Ash’s servant was lying just inside the boundary, twitching and frothing at the mouth. As Ash watched, her servant went still. A strange smell wafted from him and the skin visible under his thin, useless fur took on a strange bluish tint.

“MROW!” Ash said, since human servants were known idiots who were unable to comprehend proper language that any kitten could decipher. At least she’d managed to train this one to understand a few important vocalisations. Trenton, who held the territory beside hers, had to sometimes get physical with his servant before she performed her assigned duties.

Ash’s servant usually responded promptly but today he completely ignored Ash’s very clear order. He rose unsteadily to his hind legs and then, uttering a low noise that even a dog would be ashamed of, began moving slowly off down the street; infuriatingly away from where Ash’s empty food bowl was waiting to be filled.

Well, Ash wasn’t going to have any of that kind of disobedience! Filled with righteous fury at being ignored, Ash lost her temper and bit her servant.

Mothers milk, that was not how humans were supposed to taste! Not that Ash had acquired much first-hand experience; every kitten was taught the best parts of a human to eat if the worst should come to the worst and they should die without making proper dietary provisions for their feline overlords. Since she, personally, would rather die than eat anything that tasted as bad as her servant did right now, then something was clearly wrong.

Ash trotted off down the street after her servant. The moment he stopped smelling so foul she was going to make sure he knew just how displeased she was.

v^v^v^v

Stiles yawned as he wandered into the kitchen, giving Bitcher one last rub under her chin before putting her gently down on the floor. He picked up her food bowl and took it over to the sink to wash it. “And, what would madame like for her dinner tonight?” he asked her, using his best French accent, which, okay, was terrible, but Bitcher wasn’t complaining. “Would madame prefer the chicken, the rabbit, or the squirrel?”

“Mrow,” Bitcher answered as she wound herself around his ankles, purring loudly.

“Hmm, yesterday we had the chicken, so I think today we might try for a little rabbit, yes?” Stiles pulled out one of the portions of frozen rabbit mince and dumped it in a bowl of water to speed up the defrosting process. “And I see that madame has not touched her water! Tut, tut,” he wagged his finger in her direction. “Drinking from the toilet is hardly what we expect of such high society ladies such as yourself.” He picked that bowl up as well. She never used it, but he liked to make sure the option was there if she ever changed her mind.

That done, he opened the fridge to inspect the contents with regards to his and Derek’s dinner that night. Derek had been away for a few days meeting with various lawyers about establishing a trust for at-risk youth—its parameters would hopefully pick up any drifting supernaturals and work with them to achieve a foundation for their lives—and Stiles had no idea when he would be home. He needed something that he could do all the prep for now, and that wouldn’t take too long to cook.

He decided that a stir fry would do the trick and grabbed what he needed, dumping it all on the bench next to Bitcher’s still empty bowl.

“Mrow!” Bitcher said from her place at his feet.

“Do not worry, madame, your servant has not forgotten his duties,” Stiles assured her, poking the minced rabbit with a finger to check its progress. “Please, be patient for only a little while longer, ma chérie, our establishment would die of shame were we to serve such a distinguished guest anything but perfection.”

Bitcher rubbed her face hard against his ankles, still purring.

v^v^v^v

Ash caught up with her human just in time to see him bite another human while it was getting out of its transportation machine. In all the time that Ash had been living with her servant, she’d never seen him bite anyone. Aside from those times when mating was involved, but she wasn’t counting that. Humans did some strange things when they were mating.

It very much looked as though this human servant, who’d served her adequately for most of her life, was breaking. Which could only mean that she would need to be on the lookout for another one. Of all the inconsiderate behaviour…still, one couldn’t expect much from such an inherently backward species. Rudimentary claws, pathetic teeth, the inability to understand anything but the most obvious of cues. Is it any wonder that the cats had taken over? Really, they were doing humans a favour.

Ash watched with disapproval as he carried on down the street. The human that he’d bitten had fallen to the ground and was starting to twitch in a familiar manner.

Ash leapt up onto a nearby gate post and licked thoughtfully at her paw. It looked very much as though whatever had happened to her servant was happening to this other human too. No doubt it would soon rise to its feet and shamble off in the hope of biting even more humans.

Ugh, humans. If they carried on this way then, before too long, there probably wouldn’t be any useful ones left.

Ash’s stomach reminded her that she still hadn’t been fed. A terrible thought occurred to her. If all the humans went around biting each other with no interest in feeding their overlords, then who would feed her? Whose warm body would she perch on at night?

Something needed to be done.

Giving her paw one final lick, Ash jumped down and stalked towards the human still twitching on the ground. She’d just have to take them out one at a time. Luckily, her mother had given her training for this very eventuality, and the fence attached to the post she’d been sitting on was very spiky.

v^v^v^v

Bitcher finished her dinner with her usually quick efficiency and then sat watching Stiles as he peeled, sliced, and chopped the vegetables in preparation for the pan. Stiles was only alerted to the arrival of Derek’s Prius by Bitcher twitching her ears and then abandoning him to peer out the front window.

“You know, sometimes I wonder if you were a dog in another life,” Stiles told her, putting the knife down and giving his hands a quick wash so that he’d be ready to greet his husband when he came in the door. It was only fair, Derek was always on hand to greet him when Stiles had to be away for any length of time.

Husband. That word still gave Stiles a warm thrill, even after nine months of marriage. Not the same thing as the rather warmer feeling he got, located a little lower, at the sight of his husband emerging from his car. He was decked out in his business suit, scruff neatly manscaped and hair just slightly to the tidy side of ‘just fucked.’

Stiles hastily covered the bench with a muslin food cover because one of the awesome things about stir-fry was that it would still be good if he didn’t get around to cooking it for another hour.

v^v^v^v

Ash was so covered in gunk after dispatching the human her broken servant had bitten that she ended up taking a dip in the river to get the worst of it out of her fur. There was no way that she wanted to have to lick herself clean after that.

This wasn’t going to work. As fearsome and efficient a fighter as she was, as sharp as she kept her teeth and nails, one human had almost been too much. It was different when you had all the time in the world to plan—and access to staircases—and Ash wasn’t used to having to think on her paws to this extent.

It was unlikely that there would always be a convenient, spiky metal fence available for her use, which meant that she needed to come up with a more systematic approach. The way it had exploded into slime after being punctured was foul, but it might also come in handy.

Carefully shaking the moisture off her paws, and ignoring her wet coat because desperate times called for desperate measures, she left the empty pile of clothes that had once been a human behind and set off in the direction she’d seen her servant take earlier.

Her nose informed her that she was entering Trenton’s territory. Ash paused, before deciding that the circumstances were dire enough that co-operation might be in order.

Ugh.

v^v^v^v

“God, I love werewolf strength,” Stiles gasped. His legs slid down Derek’s hips until he was standing, admittedly wobblily, on solid ground again.

Derek nosed behind Stiles’ ears as he waited for him to regain his steadiness again. The well-trimmed scruff of Derek’s beard tickled the slightly abraded skin of his neck. “Mmmm. I love the way you love werewolf strength. I also love that Noah is away at a conference.”

“Me too. I missed you.” Stiles pulled Derek’s mouth to his for a lingering kiss. “Did you get everything done that you wanted to?”

Derek’s smile widened. “I think I’ve got the backing I need, and Andre and Maria Wilkerson have expressed an interest in helping once everything is set up.”

“Wow, that’s great!”

Andre and Maria were highly reputable therapists that were also ‘in the know’ about the supernatural world. Getting them onside would add a level of respectability and legitimacy over the whole enterprise that it might have taken years to achieve otherwise.

An old friend of Derek’s mother Talia had recommended Andre to him as a therapist, while Stiles had done an in-depth dive into what was known as ‘supe-safe’ professionals and had chosen Maria. It had been the strangest thing, meeting Derek by chance in their Minneapolis waiting room.

For Stiles, it had been three years away from Scott and his double-standards. He and his father had left Beacon Hills—and its hell-mouthy shenanigans—for good, setting up as a Private Investigative firm. It had been slow-going to start with, but once Stiles figured out how to advertise that they were supe-safe, business had rapidly picked up. Supernaturals needed private investigators too, who knew?

At first, Stiles had been wary, but it was easy to see that Derek was wary too. After running into each other a couple of times, they agreed to go out for coffee and catch up. Stiles told Derek about the things that had happened in Beacon Hills after he left, and Derek told Stiles about the pack that Cora had married into, and how his alpha power had gradually regenerated.

“I didn’t know that it worked that way,” Stiles had commented, fascinated.

Derek grimaced. “Neither did I. Neither did anyone else that I’ve talked to. Not that I’ve exactly been throwing that information around. I’d appreciate it if you kept it to yourself.”

Stiles had mimed zipping his mouth shut, and then changed the subject.

Stiles had been astonished to find out how much he liked Derek now that their lives weren’t careening from one disaster to another. Also, Derek wasn’t trying to cope with his sister’s death on top of the stress of returning to the scene of his nightmares.

It was hardly news that Derek Hale was hotter than the sun. Stiles had always, somewhat subconsciously, attributed a great part of that to the whole ‘brooding bad boy, ball of wolfy angst’ thing he had going.

But it turned out that a relaxed and smiling Derek was a bit of a dork. He made bad puns with a straight face, his humour was deadpan but definitely there, and he liked to rescue animals—even though most small animals were terrified of him. This version of Derek was the kind of hot that Stiles had only attributed to trashy romance novels. Even better, he seemed to like Stiles’ company, began to actively seek him out.

One thing had led to another and a year later Stiles and Derek were tying the knot, with Noah beaming proudly in witness. Even Cora had cracked a smile at how happy Derek was.

Now, five years after leaving Beacon Hills, Stiles truly thought that he’d never been happier. Most of his work could be done online, and his dad—who mostly acted as a consultant and as the face of the agency for non-supe clients—tended to spend the bulk of his time fishing and woodcarving.

Derek helped Stiles where he could, went fishing with Noah, and worked at getting his foundation off the ground. He said that he couldn’t think of anything that he’d rather do with the insurance money from the fire—which had finally come through thanks to some work that Stiles and Noah had done to find out just why the insurance company was dragging its heels—and Cora had agreed. She was a silent partner in the foundation, while Stiles and Noah were advisors, but the bulk of the work fell to Derek.

“Why don’t you shower while I cook. We can swap news while we eat; then we can spend the rest of the night in bed,” Stiles suggested. “You were gone so long; I need to familiarise myself with what you feel like.”

Derek rolled his eyes. “It was less than a week, Stiles.” Still, he didn’t object to Stiles’ plans for the evening, and so Stiles headed back into the kitchen.

v^v^v^v

Ash was able to gather together seven cats. It was more than she had expected but less than she hoped for. Three of the cats had servants who were already infected, two were little more than kittens and just interested in an adventure, and the other two were concerned enough about the prospect of their servants disappearing forever to take some action.

Some cats had servants that stayed shut in their houses all day and so didn’t think the problem would affect them, some that didn’t care even if it did, and of course, the wild cats in the area didn’t care a whisker. Ash grudgingly admitted to herself that if her own servant hadn’t already succumbed, then she might have cared a bit less. Well trained servants weren’t all that easy to come by and it was irritating to have him snatched away like that.

Organising a bunch of cats to do anything was always going to be hard work. Unlike dogs, no-one was interested in taking directions and everyone had their own point of view that they wanted to get across.

However, also unlike dogs, cats had the advantage of being able to think things through and to extrapolate the future. Once Ash had their agreement that the issue required immediate action, they were much more open to listening.

It didn’t stop them from going off and doing their own thing, of course, but at least they had a general idea and knew just how serious the situation was.

They also needed to make sure none of them made their way onto the huge noisy machine that stopped in town twice a day. Trenton’s servant had taken him on a journey once. The big machine was full of humans in a small space and, when Trenton was finally released from his cage, the ground nearby had been covered in cold, wet, slush.

Their resources were limited, and more than one cat was doing the work while already hungry. The whole process eased up when they realised that after a certain amount of time, defective humans just exploded into slime all on their own. All the cats needed to do was to keep them away from the noisy machine area and stop them from biting too many people during that time.

As soon as they realised that, it was almost insultingly easy. Defective humans were even stupider than regular humans and cats were experts at tripping humans and making them fall over. They were even more effective if they worked in pairs, with one cat leaping for the face while the other tangled up the legs. Provided they were thorough, they had this covered.

v^v^v^v

“So, anything new since I spoke with you last night?” Derek asked, poking the last piece of broccoli around his plate to pick up what little sauce remained.

Stiles sighed. “I’ve managed to convince one of the remaining residents, Naomi Stanway, to let me see her security footage but I’m not expecting to find anything ground-breaking on that. I’ve completed a new algorithm than might be able to break some of the surface encryption on the data I was able to get from the servers before they were taken off-line, but we’ll see.

“In other news, we closed out the Smith, Jordan, and Wong case. Then there was an issue with Nakamura Asahi; he wasn’t happy with the results. It turns out that if Stella was cheating that it would void a clause in their prenup. Unfortunately for him, there are no provisions about secret children from before the marriage popping up. He tried to get out of paying, but—” Stiles wiggled his fingers in Derek’s face.

Derek sighed. “You know that you’re not supposed to use your magic for malicious or petty reasons. What would Daria say?”

Stiles snorted. “She’d grill me on all the ways that giving someone their own personal raincloud could affect the environment because the rule is ‘Harm None’ not, ‘Mess Ye Not With Dickheads That Refuse To Pay Your Perfectly Reasonable Bill’. You don’t have to be a saint to follow basic moral guidelines, you know. And that raincloud was totally beneficial to the environment, so there.”

Derek’s eyebrows went up. “Where did you get the water from?”

“An underground river. Any water not absorbed within half an hour was recycled into the cloud. As soon as he paid, the cloud disappeared. It was all perfectly fine as far as the Precepts go.”

Derek shook his head but didn’t say anything further.

As soon as the kitchen was cleaned to Derek’s exacting standards—Stiles might have been a bit lax about the daily mopping in his husband’s absence—they retired to the bedroom, with Stiles firmly shutting the door in Bitcher’s face.

“Sorry, Buttbutt, your visitor’s pass has been rescinded,” Stiles informed her.

Bitcher hissed at him before ambling into the spare room as if that had been her planned destination all along.

v^v^v^v

It was hard work and involved far more running than cats normally liked. Luckily the defective humans moved slowly and seemed disinclined to open doors or get into vehicles. Those would have been obstacles far too difficult to surmount.

None of them liked being periodically covered in disgusting slime, but that was just the way things had to go. Ash and Trenton found themselves getting better at dodging the awful stuff but that was scant comfort when they already reeked of the stuff.

Finally, after half a day spent exterminating defectives and another day combing the area to make sure that they hadn’t missed any—made harder by the smell that had pervaded the town—Ash was reasonably certain that they’d achieved their purpose.

Humans! Infuriating, that they’d caused such a catastrophe and then left it to cats to clean up. They were no help whatsoever! No, they just stood around like, like trees and let themselves be bitten and turned into walking slime containers! Even dogs would have known to run away from people that smelled as bad as the defective ones!

Ash had also reached the conclusion that she had badly undervalued her human servant while she’d had him. Catching birds and mice and the odd insect were all very well and good when it was a hobby, rather than a matter of survival. Now that her belly was empty, she discovered that the best hunting spots were already claimed by the wild cats. The wild ones had been fighting for territory all their lives so she stood no chance of challenging them and winning.

Ash was sitting on a park bench at the centre of town and feeling sorry for herself when a series of cars rolled into view. There were more than five, and the ones in the front had flashing lights attached. One of them stopped by the large stone scratching post near the town centre while the rest continued through towards the area that the defective smell had originated from.

Ash pricked her ears in interest.

v^v^v^v

Stiles woke at an ungodly hour of the morning to a chirp from his phone. He grumpily extracted himself from Derek’s embrace and crawled out of bed to find out what it was about. It was probably nothing but he’d never be able to get back to sleep now unless he checked it out. What if it was his dad? What if he was in trouble?

He blearily focused on the message. It was a notification from the program he’d set running hours ago. One group of encrypted packets had been unlocked.

Suddenly wide awake, Stiles turned to tell Derek. “Der—” He stopped at the sight of Derek, still fast asleep and nuzzling into Stiles’ abandoned pillow.

No need to wake him, sleeping werewolves needed their beauty sleep, after all.

Still naked, Stiles took his phone with him and went to check out the new discovery.

v^v^v^v

Ash flattened her ears when she realised that the two human-shaped beings weren’t humans after all, but wolf-human hybrids. Well, there went that plan down the drain. What wolf—hybrid or not—wanted to be a cat’s servant? At least they didn’t look hostile. They were more concerned with poking at a pile of empty coverings that were all that was left of one of the defective humans that Ash and Trenton had exploded a couple of days ago.

Disgruntled at hopes of a new servant being dashed, Ash got down from the bench. A drink from the fountain was in order. It wasn’t going to fill her belly the same way a proper meal would, but it might help assuage that empty feeling somewhat.

The gurgling of her stomach had both wolves turning to stare at her.

Ash froze in place. Was she going to have to run for it? Had she misjudged their lack of interest?

She shorter one with the dark fur on its face said something in the soothing tones that humans used when they wanted to pet you but were worried that you would run away.

Ash wanted to run away—they were wolves—but now that she was closer, she could smell the scent of dried meat on the taller, red-furred one. Her stomach was overriding her common sense. It gurgled again.

The red-furred one retreated to the car and came out again holding a package. He put his paw inside, and it came out holding a piece of dried meat. It held it out in Ash’s direction, the offer clear. She could have it if she came to get it. Ash crept forward cautiously watching them both intently for any sign that they intended to attack her. As soon as she was within range, she snatched the meat and leapt back, alert for any pursuit.

As soon as she deemed herself far enough away, she ripped into the meat. It was tough, but no match for her strong teeth. It was incredibly dry, and if her human servant had offered her this only a week ago she would have turned up her nose at it in disgust. Oh, how things had changed; Ash was sure that it was the best thing she’d ever tasted.

The wolves watched her eat, murmuring to themselves. The tall, red-furred one, handed the meat packet to the smaller, dark-furred one, and then walked into one of the nearby buildings.

Ash waited to see what the dark-furred one would do.

It sat down on the bench that she’d been sitting when they arrived and patted the wood next it. When Ash didn’t move closer, it got a piece of the meat and placed it on the wood.

The wolf was giving the classic courting signs that it wanted to be her servant. Ash didn’t know what to make of it. What if she accepted, only to find out it was some fiendish canine plan? Normally she wouldn’t use words like ‘fiendish’ and ‘canine’ together, but everyone knew that wolves were considerably more cunning than the average dog.

In the end, her hungry belly and the smell of the food decided her. She would see what sort of home these wolves could offer her; if it didn’t meet her standards, she would hardly be worse off than she was now.

v^v^v^v

Stiles and Derek had been visiting with a Pack located In Yorick Valley when the whole thing had kicked off. James, the pack leader’s eldest son, was a consultant to the local force and had been called in after the first reports of a town where everyone not in a locked house had mysteriously disappeared all at once. He took Derek with him to investigate but refused to tell Stiles anything. Derek had promised to keep what he’d seen to himself and warned Stiles that if he kept asking James questions, it could strain pack relations.

They brought home a cat that immediately attached itself to Stiles, showing no inclination of budging from his presence and objecting strenuously whenever someone tried to separate them. Stiles had immediately named her Bitcher since she just would not shut up. James had offered to find out her real name but Stiles wasn’t fussed. Bitcher was answering to Bitcher within twenty-four hours, and that was good enough for him.

After the fourth attempt to leave without her had resulted in Bitcher demonstrating why her name should probably have been Slasher, Derek half-jokingly suggested that they should just take her with them.

Stiles, who was a sucker for cats anyway, was charmed at her display of bravado when up against an Alpha werewolf. He instantly agreed and they returned home with the new member of their family. Bitcher got on swimmingly with Noah but watched Derek with all the intensity of a snake deciding when to strike.

It took Bitcher a while before she felt comfortable allowing Stiles out of her sight, and even longer before she grew accustomed enough to Derek that she would allow him to approach her without heavy bribery, but within six months it was like she’d never not been around.

v^v^v^v

Ash heard her servant get up from the nest that he insisted on sharing with the wolf—who was turning out to be alright, even for a canine—and followed him into the room with the bright screen and the noisy black platform. She waited until he sat down and then jumped up beside him with a standard greeting.

“Hey, Bitcher,” he said absently. He ran his hand down her back a few times before taking his hand away and focusing all his attention on the screen. “Looks like that footage came through.” Ash knew from past experience that her servant was going to spend quite some time staring at the screen and tapping and clicking. Flattening her ears and twitching her tail at him didn’t do any good when he was like this so she curled up on the chair next to the window. When the sun came up, the first rays would warm her fur nicely.

v^v^v^v

Stiles pulled up the data his algorithm had decoded and started running it through another program that he’d written to clean it up and get ready for the second decryption. While that was running, he opened the email that he’d received from Mrs Stanway.

 

To: stiles@ioinvestigations.com

From: nstanway59@gmail.com

hi my name is luke, my g/m asked me to gt dis footage 4u I swear it’s legit fk I’m nvr smoking weed agn

l8r

 

Stiles blinked. Well, that was a little unexpected.

He opened the video file and watched with fascinated horror while a grey cat—one that looked exactly like the one curled up on the chair by the window—teamed up with a ginger tabby to deliberately trip a zombie, causing it to fall over. It stumbled to its feet, and they did it again. They continued this strange behaviour for just over ten minutes, at which point the zombie exploded into some kind of viscous liquid.

Bitcher and her feline friend dodged most of it with astonishing ease and then trotted away together out of shot, leaving nothing but some empty, stained clothes behind them.

What. The. Fuck.

Stiles watched it again. And then again. By the time Derek brought him some freshly made coffee two hours later, Stiles had managed to prove—to his own satisfaction—that the footage hadn’t been doctored and was now trawling the internet, hoping to find other instances of cats behaving in a similar bizarre fashion.

Derek dropped a kiss on his bare shoulder. “You should put some clothes on.”

“I’ve been busy.”

Derek’s eyes flicked over the current cat video that Stiles was playing. “I can see that.”

“No, really,” Stiles insisted. “Did you know ordinary house cats were so utterly terrifying?”

Derek shrugged. “They’re obligate carnivores, Stiles. That makes them a quintessential predator. I’m not sure about terrifying, though. I think you could probably take one if it came down to a fight.”

“I’m not so sure.” Stiles restarted the clip—he’d saved it and renamed it CatsVsZombie—and sat back to watch Derek’s reaction.

Derek watched from start to finish without blinking and then turned to Stiles. “What the fuck?”