On   Thursday,  October   15th, 1987,  the weather forecaster on  television assured the public that rumours of a hurricane on its way were untrue.  The wind was travelling at sixty miles an hour when it hit Southern England in the early hours of the 16th. As it gusted wildly around it reached speeds up to a hundred and twenty miles an hour. Roofs blew off houses. Sheds, greenhouses, fences and brick walls blew down, airports became shambles, cars and boats were thrown about like dinky toys in a child's hands and everywhere trees were felled..  They fell across roads with sheared off boughs hurtling through the air.  They tumbled onto railway lines. Streets of houses that could have withstood the gale were partly demolished by falling trees.

Like many of its fellows, the ancient oak was wrenched cruelly from the earth.  It resisted the violent wind's attempts  to wrest from its grasp the bundle held clasped in its exposed knotty roots.  The wild night passed and the storm quieted and died. In the dawn the rotted wrappings that held the tree's treasure fell apart.  The infant opened his eyes - he was hungry.

At first the infant moved unsteadily but, by mid-day, he trod more surely.  There was nothing for him to eat. The storm had blown away the few berries and nuts produced in the little copse.  He drank from a pool and wandered about the little wood searching for food, growing more desperately hungry as the hours passed.

When darkness fell he left the protection of the trees and braved the shattered town, attracted by the enticing fragrance of a fish and chip shop. Hiding in a hedge he watched as people came and went but, in a shop doorway nearby, another was watching and waiting.  A group of youths came out of the chip shop and stood within feet of his hiding place, talking loudly about houses with trees in their bedrooms, laughing about the destruction.. Their speech meant nothing to the infant.. They left, dropping their rubbish on the ground.  The infant hesitated - and then it was too late. From the shop doorway the other dashed forward to snatch the half a saveloy that the infant had marked as his own. Bitter disappointment turned to rage and hatred, he lunged forward.  The cat, off guard and with a mouth full of saveloy, died within seconds. The first taste to touch the infant's tongue was warm, fresh blood; his path was set.

The night before, Norman Baker woke to the sound of the storm's howling.  He went out, battling against its force, to bring in his daughter's pet rabbit.  The hutch was broken open after being thrown across the garden; Bunny was gone. The rabbit, hunched up under the garden shed,  survived the storm untroubled. The following night, enjoying its new found freedom and unwary of danger, it crossed the infant's path and lost its life.

After feeding the infant would seek a safe place to pass the night and there he would rock to and fro, crying softly to himself.  The years passed and eventually he stopped rocking and crying, resigned at last to his unhappy, solitary existence.

The countryside made hunting difficult.  It is not a good idea to try to steal a badger cub, badgers are very fierce.  Likewise foxes do not take kindly to those who would plunder their earths - vixens have very sharp teeth.  Shrews and field mice are hard to catch and not at all filling and rabbits - well, why should he spend hours chasing wild rabbits when tame ones could be plucked unresisting from their cages?  Pet animals are so much less wary than wild ones.  Sleeping cats and dogs, small livestock and poultry,  all became his prey.  He rarely stayed long in one place so his depredations were blamed mainly on dogs. or foxes.

His outward appearance disguised a keen intelligence and he grew not so much in size as in strength and cunning.  His hunting ground was the town but those few people who saw him were assured that they had seen a large cat or dog.  No-one saw him closely enough to get a proper view,

Emily Pentwhistle wrapped her coat around her shoulders and went out in the garden to find her cat.  Fluffy always came home at teatime,  regular as clockwork.  It was eight o'clock; Emily was worried.  She searched in the bushes at the end of the garden, her dim eyes straining in the dark, looking for Fluffy's distinctive tortoiseshell coat.

She saw something lying on the weedy ground . She prodded it gently    "Fluffy, Fluffy is that you?" She was answered by distressed little cry but it didn't sound like Fluffy.  She reached out a hand and felt something soft and furry but it was not her pet, the cat had fallen sick earlier that day after killing a poisoned rat.  When the infant made his kill Fluffy was mercifully released from her suffering.  He had fed and was now poisoned in his turn.

Emily lifted the small mewing creature and was surprised at its weight.  She brought it in and laid it gently in Fluffy's basket.  Blinking shortsightedly she tried to get a better look at it.  It was certainly most unprepossessing but that only made it more in need of someone with love and care to give.

The infant took a long time to recover.  Emily nursed him day and night, feeding him on milk and fish and chicken.  He was not as cuddly as her lost pet but, given time, Emily was sure her love would be returned.

He found the diet she fed him rather bland, as soon as he was back to full health he would supplement it with something a little more tasty.  He looked up into Emily's rheumy eyes -  then eyed her scraggy old neck speculatively.

THE END