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Florida Is Home to at Least One Zombie Cat

Bart. Photo: Humane Society Tampa

Here’s a story to haunt your dreams: The Tampa Bay Times reports that a one-and-a-half-year-old cat named Bart crawled out of the ground after being buried for five days. According to the paper, Bart’s owner, Ellis Hutson, recently found his pet lying in the road, having apparently died after being hit by a car. Unable to face the grim task himself, Hutson asked a neighbor — identified only as “Dave” — to bury the creature next to the street where it had met its end. 

But then

Five days later, hair matted and much the worse for wear, Bart was back, somehow managing to escape his grave. He meowed at Hutson’s neighbor, Dusty Albritton, for some food on Jan. 21. Bart had a broken jaw, a ruptured eye and a torn-up face, but he was alive, dehydrated and hungry. 

According to the Times, Hutson “wasn’t sure what to do.” (What ever happened to shrieking, running away, and contacting some kind of Ghostbuster?) Eventually, he got in touch with the local Humane Society, which offered to cover the cost of removing one of the cat’s eyes, wiring his jaw shut, and inserting a feeding tube.

Bart is expected to recover in six weeks, at which point he’ll go home with Hutson. (“The guy genuinely, believe me, cares about this cat,” said Humane Society executive director Sherry Silk, just in case you had any doubts about Hutson’s ability to properly care for an animal.) 

The takeaway? In addition to all of its other weird problems, Florida is now home to at least one feline zombie.